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LYRIC YEAR 

ONE HUNDRED POEMS 

EDITED BY 
FERDINAND EARLE 



® 



NEW YORK 

MITCHELL KENNERLEY 

1912 



Copyright 1912 by 
Mitchell Kennerley 



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Press of y. J. Little & Ives Company 

East Twenty-fourth Street 

New York 



THE LYRIC YEAR PRIZES 

/ I A HE following selections were made by the 
-■- three judges after the contents of the 
volume had been chosen by the editor: 

Mr. William Stanley Braithwaite: 

First Award — To a Thrush, by Thomas 

Augustine Daly. 
Second Award — An Ode for the Centenary 

of the Birth of Robert Browning, by 

George Sterling. 
Third Award — A Ritual for a Funeral, by 

Ridgely Torrence. 

Mr. Edward J. Wheeler: 

First Award — Second Avenue, by Orrick 

Johns. 
Second Award — An Ode for the Centenary 

of the Birth of Robert Browning, by 

George Sterling. 
Third Award — To a Thrush, by Thomas 

Augustine Daly. 

iii 



iv The Lyric Year Prizes 

The Editor: 

First Award — Renascence, by Edna St. Vin- 
cent Millay. 

Second Award — Second Avenue, by Orrick 
Johns. 

Third Award — A Ritual for a Funeral, by 
Ridgely Torrence. 

It will be seen that five poems were men- 
tioned by the judges and in arriving at a final 
decision each first choice was given three 
points, the second choice two points and the 
third one point, with the following result: 

Second Avenue, by Orrick Johns 5 

To a Thrush, by Thomas Augus- 
tine Daly 4 

An Ode for the Centenary of the 
Birth of Robert Browning, by 
George Sterling 4 

Renascence, by Edna St. Vincent 
Millay 3 

A Ritual for a Funeral, by Ridgely 
Torrence 2 

The terms of the competition called for a 
first prize of five hundred dollars and two 



The Lyric Year Prizes 



second prizes of two hundred and fifty each, 
and they have accordingly been awarded as 
follows : 

First Prize Mr. Orrick Johns 

, n • } Mr. Thomas Augustine Daly 

second Prizes } A4 - ^ Ci . r 

Mr. George sterling 



November first, 19 12 



NOTE BY THE EDITOR 

FF the usual volume of verse by a single 
author may be termed a one man's show, if 
poems appearing in the magazines may be com- 
pared to paintings handled by dealers, if time- 
honored anthologies may be called poetical 
museums, The Lyric Year aspires to the posi- 
tion of an Annual Exhibition or Salon of 
American poetry, for it presents a selection 
from one year's work of a hundred American 
poets. 

The famous first series of Francis T. Pal- 
grave's The Golden Treasury, which includes 
most of "the best original Lyrical pieces and 
songs in our language" from Thomas Wyatt, 
born in 1503, to Samuel Rogers, who died in 
1855, is also composed of about one hundred 
poets. Of Professor Palgrave's three hundred 
and thirty-nine poems, covering over three cen- 
turies, only five pieces are credited to women 
— whereas their work constitutes more than 
forty per cent, of this collection. 

vii 



viii Note by the Editor 

Curiously enough, current verse is more mas- 
culine; a tendency due, however, to contact 
with more virile influences. We are witness- 
ing the decline of Latin and Grecian influence, 
and the ascendency of the art of Norseman, 
Slav and Anglo-Saxon — a resurrection of 
Northern Deities. 

Our twentieth century poetry is democratic, 
scientific, humane. Its independence reveals 
the liberating touch of Walt Whitman, sweet 
with robust optimism. It reflects the exhilara- 
ting trend that is sweeping over Continental 
music, painting and poetry. 

The Editor has endeavored to give prefer- 
ence to poems fired with the Time spirit and 
marked by some special distinction, rather than 
mere technical performances — poems represen- 
tative, as much as possible, of the work done 
to-day in America, rather than an index to his 
personal taste. 

Ten thousand poems by nearly two thousand 
writers of verse have been personally examined 
by the Editor for this competition. 

F. E. 



THE LYRIC YEAR 



LETHARGY 

AROUND THE SUN 

THE YOUNG GOD WISH 

PATERNITY 

MIRAGE 

TO MY VAGRANT LOVE 

THE STEEL AGE 

DEDICATION 

SONNET 

THE CAMBERWELL GARDEN 

TO ROBERT BROWNING 

THE PIPER 

THE MYSTERIARCHS 

THOUGHTS IN A CATHEDRAL 

PROM A CITY STREET 

THE VOICE OP APRIL 

MORNING 

THE DYING NUN 

WILLIAM JAMES 

NEW YORK 

GOLDEN-THROATED PASTORAL 

HORN 
HEARTHSTONE AND HIGHWAY 
TO A THRUSH 
YE WHO ARE TO SING 
COMRADES 



PAGE 

ZOE AKINS I 

KATHARINE LEE BATES 3 

DOROTHY LANDERS BEALL 6 

WILLIAM ROSE BENET ^ II 

PAUL RELLAND BIRGE 1 3 

ELOISE BRITON 14 

FLORENCE BROOKS 1 8 
PAULINE FLORENCE BROWER 21 

CHARLES L. BUCHANAN 22 

RICHARD BURTON 23 

WITTER BYNNER 25 

DONN BYRNE 28 

BLISS CARMAN 30 

RHYS CARPENTER 37 

ARMOND CARROLL 40 

MADISON CAWEIN 42 

ANNE CLEVELAND CHENEY 45 

JOHN VANCE CHENEY 47 

HAROLD CHILD S 49 

FLORENCE EARLE COATES 50 

GRACE HAZARD CONKLING 53 

HELEN CO ALE CREW 62 

THOMAS AUGUSTINE DALY 67 

OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN 72 

FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS 76 



The Lyric Tear 



SONG 

JETSAM / 

AWAKENING 

ZAMBOANGA 

THE DEAD 

THE SEA-GULL 

THE FAUN 

KISA-G6TAMI 

THE GLIMPSE 

TO A POET 

SO AS YOU TOUCH ME I DREAM 

THE MERCIFUL ENSIGN 

MONARCH AND MENDICANT 

THE MIDNIGHT FERRY 

THE END 

THEJPOET IN THE*MARKET-PLACE 

I DREAMED THAT DREAM WAS 

QUENCHED 
LITTLE BIG-HORN 
SECOND AVENUE 
THE WHITE CITY 
I SING THE BATTLE 
MARTIN 
THE TIRED 
MIRIAM 

THE UNKNOWN BROTHERS 
TO ROBERT BROWNING 
SHADOW 
SATURNALIA 
O. HENRY 
THE TEMPEST 
HILL-TOP 
THE SIBYL*, 
MEDITATION OVER A SKULL 



MARION DELCOMYN 78 

HERMAN MONTAGU DONNER 79 

JULIA C. R. DORR 85 

SUSAN DYER 86 

GEORGE DYRE ELDRLDGE 90 

JOHN ERSKINE 02 

GENEVIEVE FARNELL-BOND 94 

ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE 98 

LOUISE AYRES GARNETT 104 

MARGARET ROOT GARVIN I05 

FRANCES GREGG 106 

HERMANN HAGEDORN 108 

JULIAN HAWTHORNE III 

MAX J. HERZBERG 120 

C. HILTON-TURVEY 1 23 

MARGARET BELLE HOUSTON 1 24 

GOTTFRIED HULT 1 28 

PERCY ADAMS HUTCHINSON 131 

ORRICK JOHNS 132 

THOMAS S. JONES, JR. 138 

HARRY KEMP 139 

JOYCE KILMER 141 

FLORENCE KIPER 143 

HERMAN E. KITTREDGE 144 

LOUIS V. LEDOUX 1 55 

AGNES LEE 1 58 

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE 1 60 

LUDWIG LEWISOHN 162 

NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY 1 66 

G. CONSTANT LOUNSBERY 1 69 

ARVIA MACKAYE 171 

PERCY MACKAYE 1 72 

CHARLES H. MACKINTOSH 1 76 



The Lyric Tear 



PAGE 



ANNE HATHAWAY ALONE AT 

AVON 
THE TESTING 

RENASCENCE 

TO-DAY 

THE BELOVED 

THE WHISPER OF EARTH 

WAVE PASSIONS 

PITTSBURGH 

HE WHOM A DREAM HATH POS- 
SESSED 

WOMAN-SONG 

THE CRISIS 

FEAR NOT, O SOUL 

PAT 

PSALM 

TO BROWNING THE MUSIC-MASTER ROBERT H. SCHAUFFLER 

AMERICA HERMAN SCHEFFAUER 

THE MOB EDWIN DAVIES SCHOONMAKER 228 

LET THERE BE DREAMS TO-DAY CLINTON SCOLLARD 230 

A PRAYER WENDELL PHILLIPS STAFFORD 233 

THE QUESTION MARION CUMMINGS STANLEY 234 

AN ODE FOR THE CENTENARY 



CATHERINE MARKHAM 
EDWIN MARKHAM 
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY 
ANGELA MORGAN 
BERTHA NEWBERRY 
EDWARD J. O'BRIEN 
THEODORE EUGENE OERTEL 
JAMES OPPENHEIM 

SHAEMAS O SHEEL 
JOSEPHINE P. PEABODY 
MURIEL RICE 
MARY ELEANOR ROBERTS 
FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER 
JESSIE E. SAMPTER 



178 
179 
180 
189 
192 

193 
I94 
I98 

200 
202 
214 

215 
2l6 
2l8 

220 

222 



OF THE BIRTH OF ROBERT 

BROWNING 
THE CALL 
THE CITIES 
I SHALL NOT CARE 
SARPEDON 

A RITUAL FOR A FUNERAL 
AN EASTER CANTICLE 
THE WIFE 

CALIBAN IN THE COAL MINES 
A DAY'S END 



GEORGE STERLING 235 

ALAN SULLIVAN 242 

MILDRED McNEAL SWEENEY 244 

SARA TEASDALE 250 

EDITH M. THOMAS 25 1 

RIDGELY TORRENCE 256 

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 263 

ANNA SPENCER TWITCHELL 265 

LOUIS UNTERMEYER 266 

ALLAN UPDEGRAFF 267 



The Lyric Tear 



THE FALLEN PHARAOH 

THE HYMN OF ARMAGEDDON 

ADONIS 

THE BLACK DICE 

CONFESSION 

THE FORGOTTEN SOUL 

WHITMAN AND EMERSON 

BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 

ALIEN SUN-FLOWERS 

THE GRAY MAN 

SELMA 

TO A CITY SWALLOW 



PAGE 

LEONARD VAN NOPPEN 272 

GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK 273 

BLANCHE S. WAGSTAFF 277 

HENRY CHRISTEEN WARNACK 278 

JOHN HALL WHEELOCK 280 

MARGARET WIDDEMER 281 
MARGUERITE O. B. WILKINSON 283 

GEORGE E. WOODBERRY 285 

REA WOODMAN 291 

WILLIAM HERVEY WOODS 293 

WILLARD H. WRIGHT 295 

EDITH WYATT 297 



THE LYRIC YEAR 



LETHARGY 



ZOE AKINS 



lY/TY mood is like a desert— bare and blank, 
Where all ways are encompassed by the 
South, 
And desolation and eternal drouth 
Breed on the sand but sage and cacti rank. 

I care not where I go; I scarcely feel 
The menacing fatigue about my feet, — 
The skies that scourge, the distances that 
cheat, 

The constant wounds that neither hurt nor heal. 

I know nor hour from hour nor day from day; 
I follow paths dead winds left in the sand, — 
Content to travel nowhere, and to stand, 

Deciding nothing, at some changing way . . , 

I 



2 The Lyric Year 

I know that night has come . . . and I would lie 
Forever in the sleep that all men shun; 
But a strange wind that drives me on and on 

Is stronger than my willingness to die. 

And some distress I question not, nor fight, 
Some thirst Ithought was past is urging me — 
Too weary for resistance — toward a sea 

Edged by a zone of cities gay and bright. 

Shall I return to ways that once I trod? 
Shall I be glad to live? Or shall I grieve 
For this lost land that listlessly I leave . . . 

Faintly aware of many stars . . . and God? 



The Lyric Year 



AROUND THE SUN 

KATHARINE LEE BATES 

9 A HE weazen planet Mercury, 
. Whose song is done, — 

Rash heart that drew too near 
His dazzling lord the Sun ! — 

Forgets that life was dear, 

So shrivelled now and sere 

The goblin planet Mercury. 

But Venus, thou mysterious, 

Enveiled one, 
Fairest of lights that fleet 

Around the radiant Sun, 
Do not thy pulses beat 
To music blithe and sweet, 
O Venus, veiled, mysterious? 

And Earth, our shadow-haunted Earth, 

Hast thou, too, won 
The graces of a star 

From the glory of the Sun? 



4 The Lyric Year 

Do poets dream afar 

That here all lustres are, 

Upon our blind, bewildered Earth? 

We dream that mighty forms on Mars, 

With wisdom spun 
From subtler brain than man's, 

Are hoarding snow and sun, 
Wringing a few more spans 
Of life, fierce artisans, 
From their deep-grooved, worn planet Mars. 

But thou, colossal Jupiter, 

World just begun, 
Wild globe of golden steam, 

Chief nursling of the Sun, 
Transcendest human dream, 
That faints before the gleam 
Of thy vast splendor, Jupiter. 

And for what rare delight, 

Or woes to shun, 
Of races increate, 

New lovers of the Sun, 
Was Saturn ringed with great 
Rivers illuminate, 
Ethereal jewel of delight? 



The Lyric Year 

Far from his fellows, Uranus 

Doth lonely run 
In his appointed ways 

Around the sovereign Sun, — 
Wide journeys that amaze 
Our weak and toiling gaze, 
Searching the path of Uranus. 

But on the awful verge 

Of voids that stun 
The spirit, Neptune keeps 

The frontier of the Sun. 
Over the deeps on deeps 
He glows, a torch that sweeps 
The circle of that shuddering verge. 

On each bright planet waits 

Oblivion, 
Who casts beneath her feet 

Ashes of star and sun; 
But when all ruby heat 
Is frost, a Heart shall beat, 
Where God within the darkness waits. 



The Lyric Year 



THE YOUNG GOD WISH 

DOROTHY LANDERS BEALL 

TN the land of New Sight I found him, the 

A young God Wish ! 

Roses had twined them their wantoning arms 

round his knees, 
Eager proud lilies had drooped their pale 

throats as to please 
The wild infinite heart of him; stern, on a sky 

of leaves, 
He towered in granite silence, as one who 

grieves 
For immutable starry lore. 
There I hailed him, the young God Wish! 

Never a sigh — not a quiver of sorrow or joy. 

But he gazed, with his prophet's head held 
low on his hand, 

Far ahead, far beyond to the luminous ex- 
quisite band 



The Lyric Year 



Of silver horizon. His wide blue eyes were 

like lakes 
In a rock-gray face — -clear pools where the 

morning awakes, 
Flame of the element-light, pure fire that 

cleanses and makes. 
Still he sat — will he ever know sorrow or joy? 

Then, the pitiful grip of his hands in the stony 

earth 
Told me a God knows pain as a God knows 

good; 
And I crouched to him, feeling his greatness. 

Ah, Soul of the wood, 
God of wild Want, I am thine. Thou art my 

God. Reveal 
All the anguish and silence and woe that a God 

can feel! 
Ah, ah, the pitiful grip of his hands in the 

stony earth ! 

Dawn on the lakes of his eyes, and dawn in my 

soul. 
He stirs like a glad grave wind ! He sees me ! 

He knows ! 
Slowly his mountain-body relinquishes throes 



8 The Lyric Year 

Of question and doubt and desire. He moves. 

Will he smile? 
Will he speak? I am tiny and froward and 

filthy and vile ! 
He smiles. He is speaking. Ah, dawn in his 

eyes, in my soul! 

I am the young God Wish. All my life is 
desire. 

I am the wailing spirit of infinite want. 

I want all the beautiful knowledge — the power, 
the sea, 

All the winds and the earth and the little un- 
hesitant flowers. 

I want pain and truth and life — ah, most bit- 
terly, life. 

And deepest of all I want love and love and 
love! 



I am the young God Wish. By my very desire, 
My naked and potent Want, I can bring life 

to me. 
I can sit all day like a stern sea-cliff, still and 

strong, 
And want all imagined divine, all human, all 

love 



The Lyric Year 



Into me, here with me. I am the soul of de- 
sire. 

See, in my eyes, how the whole life-motion of 
things 

Unrolls and speeds and develops — O I am the 
world! 

By my want I have lived all the lives of all 
time, 

I have loved all the loves, I have made all the 
bridges and forts; 

I have built, I have mated and died in a thou- 
sand lives. 

I am insatiable, incarnate Want. I am God! 

Sit by my heart and hear the great meaning 
of life. 

Live in desire ! Lo, I am the young God Wish ! 



So, in the bracken-fastnesses, Want and I 

Sit watching together, watching and wanting 

forever. 
I, crouched humbly between his omnipotent 

knees 
Under the universal paean of singing trees; 
He, brooding over me — dawn in his yearnful 

eyes, 
Above us twain the slow, glad gold of sunrise, 



io The Lyric Year 

i — - — . 

And a joy like new birth and a want, ever 

rising, that lies 
In our deepest souls — -ah, we live in that want. 

For, who dies 
But the wantless, the passionless? Hail, ah 

Thou Infinite Wish! 
Lo, in the bracken fastnesses, Want and I ! 



The Lyric Year II 



PATERNITY 

WILLIAM ROSE BENET 

^^TOT only women dream the future's child 
Or children, though such deep desire 

they bear 
For all the rich rewards of motherhood, 
They smile in travail; though each girl un- 

grown 
Who sings her dolls uncertain lullabies 
Sees infant faces, feels soft arms that cling, 
Hears deep within the nursery of her heart 
A medley of small mirth adorable, 
And, as she grows, mothers all things she loves, 
Lacking the little head against her breast 
And yearning for it, when she cannot know 
Wherefore she yearns. Yet sometimes to a 

man, 
Roughest and sternest though he be of men, 
Shocked into strength and pondering, from his 

young 
Exuberance and easy joy, there comes 
A longing that convulses all his soul; 



12 The Lyric Year 

And, standing in the wind against some dawn's 
Prospect of racing cloud and lightening sky, 
Or hard-beset in battle with the world 
Deep in the city's stridence, or at pause 
Before some new-discovered truth of life, 
Unwittingly his hands go out to touch, 
Hold off, and scan the youth of him that was, 
Thrill to that brighter youth it is decreed 
Each father shall inherit from his son. 
And, if his hands grope blindly, so his heart, 
To hear a young voice at his shoulder speak, 
Know young, elastic strides beside his own, 
Resolve the problems of an unsullied heart 
Flaming to his for counsel. I, scarce-grown 
Into my manhood, hovering, hovering still 
Over my boyhood (as the gravest, oldest 
Of men doth yet, or is no man of men), 
Felt my heart tense, and but a noon ago 
Strove in quick torture — for no woman's arms, 
No woman's eyes, but for a questioning voice 
Beside me, and a sturdy little step 
In rhythm with mine. A phantom face looked 

up, 
Trusting, round-eyed, alive with curious joy; 
And all my being yearned: My son! My son! 



The Lyric Year 13 

MIRAGE 

PAUL RELLAND BIRGE 

T O, Kings and Poets toward the sinking 
■■— 4 sun 

Travel one Road, whose end the Shadows 

make 
Wherein a stately slumber each shall take 
The while whole deserts through the hour-glass 
run. 

Lovers with songs and Princes crowned with 
gold, 
Wise men and Beggars toward that Twilight 

move; 
Queens in their pride and Damsels wan with 
love 
Pass like rapt shadows toward that Vale of 
Cold. 

So all we piteous children of the light, 
Singing or sighing, toward the ashen gray 
That darkens with the Sunset's fading ray 

Depart, like cloud-drift on the wastes of Night. 



14 The Lyric Year 

TO MY VAGRANT LOVE 

ELOISE BRITON 

~"\EAR Vagrant love whose heart is scarred 
^^ By the deep wounds of passion's war; 
Whose every kiss, a blood-red rose, 
From seed of dead desire grows 
And kisses gone before; 

Dear love, whose arms sure magic know 
To kindle all the form they hold; 
Whose hands are sweet against my breast 
Because of others they have pressed, 
And love-lore learned of old; 

Dear, I have left you ere the flame 

Should cease to leap from lip to lip; 

Ere my white limbs should lose their power, 

Or into that last pallid hour 

Love's waning moon should slip. 

Yes, I have left you and I know 
That you will miss me for a night; 
That you will toss an hour or two, 



The Lyric Year 15 

And moan a little as you do, 
Grown hungry for delight. 

And, love, you shall not deem it ill 
That I am glad, full glad of this: 
So little shall remain of me 
Of all the sweet infinity 
That lingers in a kiss. 

For I, who in soft, languorous dreams 
Had half imagined such as you, 
Not knowing, and yet hungering 
For some more vivid, throbbing thing 
Than any that I knew, 

Since you have touched me I am grown 
Myself all flame, and full of sighs. 
The strange new longings you have waked, 
And thirsts you roused and have not slaked 
Are heavy in my eyes. 

My feet are shod with restlessness, 
My days pass like a summer drouth; 
Strange, sudden heats are in my blood, 
And my lips ache where you have wooed, 
An-hungered for your mouth. 



1 6 The Lyric Year 

And yet, and yet, — dear vagrant love- 
How can I wish the past undone? 
Your kisses and your sweet, sweet words, 
As soft as little throbbing birds, 
Wish them denied the sun, 

Thrust back into the womb of time 
And made as things that shall not be? 
Nay, though my love be big with death 
Yet have I drawn the keenest breath 
That life could hold for me. 

For you have taught me, love of mine, 
What breath can be, and how the tide 
Sweeps up and surges in my blood, 
Drowns with sweet stranglings at the flood, 
And ebbs then satisfied. 

It has been very good, my hour, 
And perfect as a rounded ring. 
As we began, we ended so, 
Nor trod the downward paths that go 
To love's diminishing. 

So at the last, dear vagrant love, 
When longer, stronger loves are dead, 
And you return, a restless wraith, 



The Lyric Year 17 

Down vistas of forgotten faith, 
Dim with pale words long said, 

Amid the burnt-out fires of love 
There you shall find my hour at last, 
Unclouded by the dust of them, 
But vivid as a naked gem, 
Still burning in the past. 



1 8 The Lyric Year 



THE STEEL AGE 

FLORENCE BROOKS 

^T^HE world is dry and cold and mechanized, 
■*■ The hearts of men are dead that are not 

sad, 
All the quick souls are beaten back to darkness, 
Song has no joy, love is no longer glad. 

The rivers run no more triumphant clear, 
Harassed by factory, slaughter-house and 

sewer, 
Smoke settles down on the once shining trees, 
And grime leaves the bright grass no longer 

pure. 

The sunset flares in rage, the morning breaks 
In calculating beats upon a gong 
Calling to waken those who once had souls 
But now crawl forth a callous, desperate 
throng. 



The Lyric Year 19 

Nor funeral nor birth is sacred here 
Where love is called by an ignoble name, 
Nor tragedy significant, nor law 
Righteous, and war has grown a greedy game. 

O all the music of the years is dumb, 
Lost is the tender grief that love begets ; 
Dead is delight in dreams of delicate hue, 
Composed of all sweet woes and soft regrets. 

And men are faint in all the ruck and din; 
Those whirring leathers, sullen fires, fierce 

steels, 
Plague the once lively brain, the eager heart, 
Become a throbbing sore amid mad wheels. 

O symbol of the solemn wheel of fate 
Whose dark majestic orbit spins in space, 
How sordid have thine images become 
Wanting the soul of beauty and love's grace! 

Go out, all men, and wander in the waste, 
Go trail your anguish over swamp and sand, 
Lay down your heads at dusk and cry aloud 
How live the stagnant souls in our great land ! 



20 The Lyric Year 

weary poet, prisoned in foul walls, 
Let some new order spring from thine old woe, 
Take thyself out and wander to the void 
In loneliness wherever thy feet go ! 

Perchance thou mayest find some hidden place 
Alone upon the border of a grove, 
Thy gaze turned toward the line of the far sea 
To dream anew the vision of life and love. 



The Lyric Year 21 

DEDICATION 

PAULINE FLORENCE BROWER 

OOK in my life, not in mine eyes, to see 
"^ How deep thou dwellest in me. 
Trust not my lips, nor any mood of mine 
To prove that I am thine. 
By what I am and what I shall achieve 
I bid thee to believe: 
A service rendered silently to thee 
My every act must be. 

The secret power that shapes me as I grow 
My constancy must show. 
My smallest task shall be the test to tell 
If I have heeded well. 
All sorrow I would touch with tenderness 
Because of thy caress: 
And every grief of which I bear the scar 
Shall brighten to a star. 
So I will weave thy being into mine; 
Thy hidden light shall shine 
Through me, till I shall be 
The Testament of thee. 



22 The Lyric Year 



SONNET 

CHARLES L. BUCHANAN 

Tj^OR all that I am wrong I have no plea. 

A I hold no claim of sober righteousness, 

Although not wilfully do my ways digress 

From envied ways of health and sanity; 

Nor am I anything I wish to be, 

But all that I have gathered through distress. 

My heart is as a broken melody, 

My senses are grown numb and passionless. 

No other shares the secret that I know: 
My wasted worth of song hath passed unblown. 
From my sick, shattered senses I alone 
Am conscious of a music's vast outflow. 
Must I be speechless of my truth, and go 
As doth some winged thing that hath not 
flown! 



The Lyric Year 23 



THE CAMBERWELL GARDEN 

RICHARD BURTON 

{Browning was born May J ', at Camberwell, 
a suburb of London) 

MAY hath her own blithe beauty, nor doth 
need 
The other loveliness of human deed 
And human fellowship ; yet doubly fair 
She seems to brood o'er Camberwell, since 

there 
Once walked the lad who made of blooms and 

birds 
His cronies, knew their winsome ways and 

words. 

Far did he wander; many a mile away 

And many a year, he saw the face of May 

Rosy, recurrent, in Italian nooks 

Uplifting summer arms and siren looks. 

This month of melody and warmth and shine 

Is welcome to the heart of man as wine ! 



24 The Lyric Year 

Ah, but at Camberwell each sound and sight 
And scent — sure ministers to his delight — 
Were interwoven with dewy memories 
Stronger and sweeter than from overseas; 
And wheresoe'er his feet in faring turned, 
Whiles, for that garden-place he must have 
yearned. 

He who comes back to greet an old, dear 

friend, 
And finds him gone, knows it is not the end, 
But lovingly awaits the gladder day 
When all friends gather in from far-away. 
So maiden May comes back and waits for him 
In grass and flower and every greening limb. 

Long gone the garden, and the singer too 
Sleeps otherwhere ; but still the sky is blue, 
Spring scents are rife, old magic still beguiles, 
And May in Camberwell recalls, and smiles. 



The Lyric Year 25 



TO ROBERT BROWNING 

WITTER BYNNER 

/ TpO tell the truth about you, Robert Brown- 

■■* ing, 

I bring no wreath of laurel to your crowning 
Save this: that no one who has loved — can 
doubt you, 

Robert Browning. 

An amateur of melody and hue, 

Of marble outline and of Italy, 

Of heresies and individuals 

And every eccentricity of truth; 

And yet an Englishman, a healthy brute 

Loving old England, thrushes and the dawn; 

A scholar loving careful gentlemen; 

A man of fashion loving the universe; 

A connoisseur loving dead artists' lives, 

Their names, their labors and their enemies; 

A poet loving all the ways of words ; 

A human being giving love as love, 

Denying death and proving happiness; — 



26 The Lyric Year 

When you love women, because youth loves 

women, 
And when you love a woman, because heart 
Understands heart through more than youth 

or age 
Or time, and when you marvellously become 
The man whom Carlyle and whom Landor 

love — 
You are life's poet by a poet's life. . . . 
But when you set yourself about with words, 
Abracadabra, bric-a-brac and the dust 
Of piled confusion, toying with obsolete 
Prescriptions, and with owlish lenses hide 
Your eyes until you marvellously become 
A ponderous, pondering apothecary — 
You dispense remedies dispensable. 
So I take down your bulky book of records, 
And find those certain pages where you tell 
The beauty of a shoulder or reveal 
The pure and simple permanence of love. 
It is enough to learn, by a lazy glance 
Through other passages, how you conserve 
The true susceptibility and pathos 
Of bishops, mediums and murderers, 
Manage the rhythm of fantastic souls, 
Mark in the fault something to profit by: 
Challenge the far perfection resident 



The Lyric Year 27 

In imperfection's opportunity 
And — more magnanimous than most of us— 
Finding yourself in all humanity, 
Forgive humanity for what you find. 
You see, I know your text and care for it ! 
And while I hate to hunt for it through all 
Your dark old corners, here outdoors I stand 
And watch you through the windows and ad- 
mire 
The cheerful industry with which you piece 
Your manuscripts together to maintain 
And to corroborate with many proofs 
Your confidence in man — even in me. 

— Who would, has heard me rank you, Robert 

Browning . 
I bring no wreath of laurel to your crowning 
Save this: that for your confidence — I thank 

you, 

Robert Browning. 



28 The Lyric Year 

THE PIPER 

DONN BYRNE 

'WILL take my pipes and go now, for the 
bees upon the sill 
Are singing of the summer that is coming 
from the stars. 
I will take my pipes and go now, for the little 
mountain rill 
Is pleading with the bagpipes in tender, 
crooning bars. 

I will go o'er hills and valleys, and through 
fields of ripening rye, 
And the linnet and the throstle and the bit- 
tern in the sedge 
Will hush their throats and listen as the piper 
passes by, 
On the great long road of silver that ends 
at the world's edge. 

I will take my pipes and go now, for the sand- 
flower on the dunes 
Is a-weary of the sobbing of the big white 
sea, 



The Lyric Year 29 

And is asking for the piper, with his basket- 
full of tunes, 
To play the merry lilting that sets all hearts 
free. 

I will take my pipes and go now, and God go 
with you all, 
And keep all sorrow from you, and the dark 
heart's load. 
I will take my pipes and go now, for I hear 
the summer call, 
And you'll hear the pipes a-singing as I pass 
along the road. 



30 The Lyric Year 



THE MYSTERIARCHS 

BLISS CARMAN 

\\T HO called us forth out of darkness and 
* gave us the gift of life, 

Who set our hands to the toiling, our feet in 
the field of strife? 

Out of their beauty and longing, out of their 

raptures and tears, 
In patience and pride they bore us, to war with 

the warring years. 

Darkly they mused, predestined to knowledge 

of viewless things, 
Saving the seed of wisdom, guarding the living 

springs. 

Little they reckoned privation, hunger or hard- 
ship or cold, 

If only the life might prosper, and the joy that 
grows not old. 



The Lyric Year 31 

With sorceries subtler than music, with knowl- 
edge older than speech, 

Gentle as wind in the wheat-field, strong as the 
tide on the beach. 



Who looked on the world before them, and 
summoned and chose our sires, 

Subduing the wayward impulse to the will of 
their deep desires? 

They schooled us to service and honor, modest 

and clean and fair, — 
The code of their pride of living, taught with 

the sanction of prayer. 



Who were our sharers of sorrow, who were 

our makers of joy, 
Lighting the lamp of high manhood in the 

heart of the lonely boy? 



Who strengthened our souls with courage and 

sent us forth to achieve, 
Foreseeing and not refusing, the portion of 

them that grieve? 



32 The Lyric Year 

Haloed with love and with wonder, in sheltered 

ways they trod, 
Seers of sublime divination, keeping the truce 

with God 

Sovereigns of ultimate issues under the greater 

laws, 
Theirs was the mystic mission of the eternal 

cause. 

Confident, tender, courageous, leaving the law 

for the higher, 
Lifting the feet of the nations out of the dust 

and the mire; 

Luring civilization on to the fair and new, 
Given God's bidding to follow, having God's 
business to do; 

Mothers, unmilitant, lovely, moulding our 

manhood then, 
Walked in their woman's glory, swaying the 

might of men. 

Who called us from youth and dreaming, and 

set ambition alight, 
And made us fit for the contest, — men, by their 

tender rite? 



The Lyric Year 33 

Who chose us above our knowledge, charming 

our strength and skill, 
To be the pride of their power, to be the means 

of their will? 



If we be the builders of beauty, if we be the 

masters of art, 
Whose were the gleaming ideals, whose the 

uplift of the heart? 



Versed in the soul's traditions, skilled in hu- 
manity's lore, 

They scoff at the waste of progress and weep 
for the sins of war. 



Truly they measure the lightness of trappings 

and ease and fame, 
For the teeming desire of their yearning is 

ever and ever the same : 



To crown their lovers with gladness, to clothe 

their sons with delight, 
And see the men of their making lords in the 

best man's right. 



34 The Lyric Year 

We are shaken with dark misgiving, as king- 
doms rise and fall; 

But the women who went to found them are 
never counted at all. 

Lavish of joy and labor, broken only by wrong, 
These are the guardians of being, spirited, sen- 
tient and strong. 

Theirs is the starry vision, theirs the inspiriting 

hope, 
Since Night the brooding enchantress promised 

that day should ope. 

Lo, we have built and invented, reasoned, dis- 
covered, and planned, 

To rear us a palace of splendor, and make us 
a heaven by hand, — 

And behold they turn from our triumphs, as 

it was in the first of days, 
For a little glory of ardor and a little justice 

of praise. 

These are the rulers of kingdoms beyond the 

domains of state, 
Martyrs of all men's folly, over-rulers of fate. 



The Lyric Year 35 

These we will love and honor, these we will 

serve and defend, 
Fulfilling the fitness of nature, till nature shall 

have an end. 



The foolish may babble and riot, but the deep- 
eyed help-mates know 

The power that settled the rooftree was more 
than the power of the blow. 

And the law that guides our malehood out of 

the mirk and the reek, 
Is the law of love almighty, the law of the 

strength of the weak. 



This is the code unwritten, this is the creed we 

hold, 
Because of the little and lonely, because of the 

helpless and old, — 



Apart from the brunt of the battle our won- 
drous women shall bide, 

For the sake of a tranquil wisdom and the need 
of a spirit's guide. 



36 The Lyric Year 

Come they into assembly, or keep they another 

door, 
Our makers of life shall lighten the days as the 

years of yore. 

The lure of their laughter shall lead us, the lilt 

of their words shall sway; 
Though life and death should defeat us, their 

solace shall be our stay. 

Veiled in mysterious beauty, vested in magical 

grace, 
They have walked with angels at twilight and 

looked upon glory's face. 

Life we will give for their safety, care for their 

fruitful ease, 
Though we break at the toiling benches or go 

down in the smoky seas. 

This is the gospel appointed to govern a world 
of men, 

Till love has died, and the echoes have whis- 
pered the last Amen. 



The Lyric Year 37 



THOUGHTS IN A CATHEDRAL 

RHYS CARPENTER 

ORD, not with these thy priesthood dwells, 
*^ Not in these carven stalls, 
Not where the mighty organ swells, 

Nor mid the toll of bells, 
Not in thy Sabbath, God, not in thy holy halls 
Where the cleft sunlight falls 

Deep-stained like wine, 
Not here, O God, not here 
Where the deep pulse of silence holds thy 
shrine 
'Twixt awe and fear, 
Not here thy voice, not here that breath divine. 

How very old, O God, are we, how very old. 

The Spring with all its blossom comes anew; 
The giant shadows of the elms unfold, 

The river grasses show their tenderest hue, 
And all the meadows shine with gold, 

And the great skies are blue. 



38 The Lyric Year 

Within our hearts a glory stirs; 

Our slothful winter blood 

Like river-flood 
With rushing stream in foaming speed 
Leaps on, or like the warrior's steed 

Which feels the battle spurs. 
Is here thy shrine,. O God? Art thou revealed 
In swaying blossom and in blowing field, 
Is thy deep priesthood but the heart of joy, 
The ever-brimming laughter unconcealed 

Of Spring's light-hearted mirth? 
Shall even these fresh pleasures never cloy? 

Dwells here thy priesthood, God, on earth? 



Ah no, ah no ; we are not as the leaf, 

In thoughtless growth unfurled; 
And though our life be brief 

We are as ancient as the world, 
Arid in our heart there lies unmeasured 

grief. 
Our memories are older than the sea 

And wash the headlands of uncrumbling 
time ; 
Deep visionary gods are we, 

And not the masking creatures of a rhyme: 
God dwells within us, silent, secretly. 



The Lyric Year 39 

Yet unto some he speaks, through some he 

moves in view 
And with creative finger writes beneath our 

eyes, 
Lest we grow blind and perish. Yet how few, 
How few on whom the sacred laurel lies, 

To whom their labor yields 

Fruit in unfurrowed fields, 

Upon whose quiet brows 

No hate and anger rouse, 

But deep within their eyes 
Like dawn upon the hills, the mystic visions 

rise. 
Their knowledge is a servant unto power, 
Their passions are the root whence springs 

the flower, 
Their hearts are turned to catch the hidden 

strain 

Of laughter and of pain, 
And all the ages mould for them a single hour. 
They see the dawn of wisdom on the earth, 
They draw from Time's enchanted wells, 
Theirs are the doors of death and birth. 
With these thy holy priesthood dwells. 



40 The Lyric Year 



FROM A CITY STREET 

ARMOND CARROLL 

TLTERE brood the harpies of our modern 
A A time, 

Here on the crags which high uplift 
Their steel-knit skeletons of brick and lime 

Above the surfs that surge and shift. 



Decrepit, gaunt and wildly wracked are they, 
Unkempt and wild their sooty hair 

Which blows in the wind and veils the light of 
day 
From the grey gorges of their lair. 



Some time they dumbly sway, and swaying 
moan, 

Muttering words as if in dream; 
Or yet they chant weird song in monotone, 

With fitful pause and sudden scream. 



The Lyric Year 41 

Some time they laugh in strident ecstasy, 

Shrill, penetrating as a spar 
Of crackling lightning shattered through the 
sky 

When star meets star. 

Some time they sob, with hidden face and 
bowed, 
Shuddering like troubled trees 
In the black night when storms with bulging 
shroud 
Steal onward in the breeze. 

All time they mock the futile restless waves 
That surge in great affair below, 

And, mocking, hail to wide oblivious graves 
The victims of the undertow. 



42 The Lyric Year 



THE VOICE OF APRIL 



MADISON CAWEIN 

A PRIL calling, April calling, April calling 
me ! 
I hear the voice of April there in each old ap- 
ple-tree ; 
Bee-boom and wild perfume, and wood-brook 

melody — 
O hark, my heart, and hear, my heart, the 
April ecstasy! 



Hark to the hills, the oldtime hills, that speak 
with sea and sky! 

Or talk in murmurs with God's winds who on 
their bosoms lie: 

Bird-call and waterfall and white clouds blow- 
ing by — 

O hark, my heart, O hear, my heart, the April's 
cosmic cry! 



The Lyric Year 43 

There runs a whisper through the woods, the 

word of bough to bough; 
A sound of dead things donning green, of 

beauty waking now : 
Fern-bower and wildwood flower, each one a 

prayer or vow — 
G see, my heart, O look, my heart, where 

Earth crowns white her brow. 



And far away, and far away, yet nearer than 
she seems, 

Look where she takes the oldtime trail and 
walks again with dreams: 

Bird note and irised mote and laughter of wild 
streams, 

O hark, my heart, O hear, my heart, and fol- 
low where she gleams. 

Earth hath put off her winter garb of gray and 

drab and dun, 
And robes herself in raiment green of love and 

laughter spun: 
Wood bloom and wood perfume and colors 

of the sun — 
O hark, my heart, O hear, my heart, where 

her wild footsteps run! 



44 The Lyric Year 

O April, mother of my soul, take to your heart 
your child; 

And let him lie a little while upon its rapture 
wild: 

Lean close and near and let him hear the words 
that once beguiled, 

And on his eyes the kiss again of longing re- 
conciled. 

O kiss, that fills the fields with flowers and 

thrills with green each grove, 
Dream down into this heart again and grow to 

songs thereof: 
Wild songs in singing throngs, that swift shall 

mount above, 
And like to birds, with lyric words, take Earth 

and Heaven with love. 



The Lyric Year 45 



MORNING 

ANNE CLEVELAND CHENEY 

TV/f ORNING — light everywhere — 
■*■ A Deep tang of purpose thrilling the air, 
All things awakening, Hours alert, 
Poised for the race, garments up-girt — 
Radiant, ready! 

As morning-glories unfurl, one by one, 
Sweet, homely duties ope eyes at the sun; 
Tread of school-children rouses old Earth 

To broad, kindly mirth; 
Streamers of smoke up-curl to the blue, 
Where aspiration, new kindled, breaks through 
The symbol of labor — up and away, 
To an arching Ideal! 

Call o' the day — 
Chorus of energies, urgent or shrill 
With clear affirmation, quicken the will 
To zest of effort after the dream! 

Roads move and gleam 



46 The Lyric Year 

Like shuttles, busily weaving to braid 
A strong, goodly pattern of toil and of trade 
Across nature's warp; as comrades link arm, 
Town joins with town and village with farm, 
In brotherhood, on the broad highway 
Of universal service — day, day! 

But hush, singing Heart ! Oh, yonder there, 
What broods in deep shadow? Cowed by 

grim Care, 
Drudgery flags and clings to the dark! 
Knoweth he aught of the sky or the lark? 
Knoweth he aught of purpose a-thrill 
With soaring strain of a buoyant will? 
Song o' the City turns to a prayer — 
Light, light, O God, everywhere! 



The Lyric Year 47 



THE DYING NUN 
{Born out of Wedlock) 

JOHN VANCE CHENEY 

A ND shall death quench the fire long fought 
So well? 'Tis promised; yet as naught 
Seems all else in the world beside, 
The while I feel it burn. Throw wide 
The shutter, sisters, to the warm springtide. 

O, that wild love before my birth, 
It holds me hard to the sweet earth! 
My mother — God enfold her well! — 
She loved, nor fought it, and so fell; 
Her thoughts all heaven, she had no thought 
for hell. 

Chance mine, not hers, the very sin, 
For that I quenched the flame within, 
The strange wild flame; so did not live 
My life, took not what life would give, 
But turned, and fled to you, a fugitive. 



48 The Lyric Year 

Somewhat is plain : I have had naught. 
Nay, I must say it, or hush the thought 
Of all my thoughts the loudest, so 
Deceive you. Kiss me, let me go. 
Perhaps your way is God's ; I do not know. 



The Lyric Year 49 



WILLIAM JAMES 

HAROLD CHILDS 

HIS heart could brook no cold logician's 
God, 
Nor distant Absolute of later days; 
He heard the music of life's common ways, 
And the vast earth was more than empty clod. 
For him no shop-worn creed with abstract rod 
Could measure death and life; his radiant gaze 
Turned homeward, and he saw in dust and haze 
The greater Vision where the humble trod. 

His was a firmer faith, that knows not fear 
In the vast driftings of the cosmic weather, 
But with a constant trust looks ever here 
Where man and God are struggling on to- 
gether, 
Where God as man is finite, each is free, 
And each achieves his separate destiny. 



50 The Lyric Year 

NEW YORK 
A Nocturne 

FLORENCE EARLE COATES 

y\ OWN-GAZING, I behold, 
■*^^ Miraculous by night, 
A city all of gold. 

Here, there, and everywhere, 

In myriad fashion fair, 
A mystery untold 

Of Light! 

Not royal Babylon, 

Nor Tyre, nor Rome the great — 

In the all-powerful state 
Her wisdom and her armed legions won — 

Was so illuminate 
As the strange world which, awed, I look upon. 
With it compared, the ancient glories fail, 

And, in the glow it doth irradiate, 
The planets of the firmament grow pale ! 

Night, birth-fellow to Chaos, never wore 
A robe so gemmed before. 



The Lyric Year 5 1 

The splendor streams 
In lines and jets and scintillating gleams 
From tower and spire and campanile bright, 
And palaces of light. 

How beautiful is this 
Unmatched Cosmopolis! — 
City of wealth and want, 

Of pitiless extremes, 

Selfish ambitions, pure aspiring dreams; 
Whose miseries, remembered, daunt 
The bravest spirit hope hath cheered — 
This city loved and hated, honored, feared: 
This Titan City, bold to dare: 

This wounded Might 
That, dreading darkness, still conceals its care 

And hides its gaping hurt 'neath veils of 
light! 

O, I have looked on Venice when the moon 
Silvered each dark lagoon, 

And have in dreams beheld her 
Clothed in resplendent pride, 
The Adriatic's bride! 
Naples I, too, have seen — 
An even lovelier Queen — 

And thought that nothing in the world ex- 
celled her — 



52 The Lyric Year 

Nay marvelled, as at close of day 
I gazed across her opalescent bay 
And saw Vesuvius burn on high 
Against the soft Italian sky, 
That anything on earth could wear 
A charm so past compare! 

Yet, O Manhattan! Glowing now 

Against the sombre night, 

Thine opulence and squalor hid from sight, 
Never was aught more beautiful than thou 
Dost in thy calm appear — 
So glorified and so transfigured here — 
Since the Eternal, to creation stirred, 
Breathed from His awful lips the mystic 
word: 

Let there be Light! 



The Lyric Year 



S3 



GOLDEN-THROATED PASTORAL 
HORN 

GRACE HAZARD CONKLING 

English Horn. 



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f dim. 



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Tristan and Isolde. 



~^\ID a wild faun, Pan had led 
^^^ Once along some river-bed, 
Left unfriended and alone, 
Crave a music of his own? 
Did he break a reed and try- 
To evoke the folding cry 
That his heart stood still to hear 
When the shepherd god was near? 

In a wistful dream I see 
How he tested tremulously 



54 The Lyric Year 

All the pale reed's slender strength: 
How he breathed along the length 
Of his elfin instrument 
Utmost awe and daring blent: 
He was half a god — but can 
Any mimic mighty Pan? 

Did the slim, low-laughing reed 
Ripple courage for his need, 
That his ivory hands grown bold 
Cupped themselves to seek to hold 
As the flower would hold the bee, 
Tones as eager to be free, 
Till its rills of flickering laughter 
Were but echoes mocking after? 

In some leafy privacy, 
None but squirrels and birds to see, 
Where the tossed moist light fell cool 
And the moss was wonderful, 
When he flung the reed aside 
Wistful and unsatisfied, 
Did some moulded lily hold 
Promise of a tone of gold, 
Or some wine-dark tulip gleam 
Curved for sound across his dream, 



The Lyric Year 55 

That his slanted eyes shut tight 
To mere wrinkles of delight, 
Fed with vision of a horn 
Flower-mouthed and forest-born? 



Brown wood in the thicket sought 
Long and earnestly he wrought, 
Fashioning what tools were fit 
To set free the god in it: 
Like the wan reed's silver throat 
Hollowed for the river's note 
Shaped the dusky stem — to curl 
Wide as tulip-buds unfurl 
To a carven flower-cup 
Where the music bubbling up 
Should o'erbrim the magic mould 
Changed from silver into gold. 

Lost to all the forest — he 
Laughed aloud for ecstasy: 
Long forgot rainbow and rose — 
All his dawns and afterglows: 
Many a day to dusk drew on 
O'er his deep oblivion: 
Many a night a glow-worm dim 
Lit her tiny torch for him, 



56 The Lyric Year 

Holding captive in a spark 

Core and sweetness of the dark, 

Ere the chiseled cup bloomed fair 

Carven as of tawny air: 

Ere his fingers shaped and knew 

Little dells to slip into 

Cunningly contrived for them 

All along the hollowed stem — 

Curious caverns of delight 

Whence the tone should flow aright 

Ere the bit of reed he set 

Like a river-amulet 

Cut to quiver at his mouth 

Memories of the windy South. 



'Twas mid-April when he drew 
Firm his pouted lips and blew 
A low challenge suave and fine 
As the sorcery of wine — 
Subtle as a shadowed pool — 
Savage, rich and wonderful — 
Till he doubted if the tone 
And the rapture were his own: 
And the dusk and drowsy brake 
Dreamed a nightingale awake. 



The Lyric Year 57 

New to music, half afraid 
Of the marvel he had made, 
How his heart shook but to feel 
The remembered glory steal 
Back along his burning blood! 
Dared he loose the lyric flood 
And its waves of golden flame 
Take full-breasted as they came? 
Dared he prelude the sweet night 
In that last bewildering light, 
If perchance the mystic horn 
Knew where all its winds were born? 
If from that enchanted urn 
There might spill along the fern 
Chime of shaken bells that call 
Down far hillsides pastoral? 
He would question it alone 
Softly in an undertone: 
But the horn's first poignant cry 
Lured the white moon up the sky 
And the faun his fear forgot : 
Grew a god — and knew it not. 
Pungent utter youth he played, 
Till the mosses of the glade 
Shook their elfin caps of red 
'Neath the pattering satyr-tread: 



58 The Lyric Year 

Till the little vivid trees 
Yielded up their Dryades, 
And the leaning thicket grew 
Starred with wild eyes peering through 
Not a leaf-eared faun but heard, 
Nor a drowsy nested bird: 
The dim forest thrilled with wings: 
Small bewitched shy-natured things 
Creeping closer to the sound 
Huddled next the friendly ground: 
Arid far-roaming wood-nymphs all 
Thought they heard Iacchus call — 
Glimpsed his robe's empurpled hem 
And his garland diadem. 

Pan among the reeds alone 

Felt a music not his own 

Like the springtide's brimming flood 

Tincture his immortal blood: 

In enraptured quiet heard 

How the moon-blanched river stirred, 

Quick within that cry to heed 

Leagues of reed become one reed. 

Such a voice to sigh and yearn 

Might make fleeing Syrinx turn ! 

Ah — what mad Arcadian 

Dared out-lure the pipes of Pan? 



The Lyric Year 59 

Through the mellow midnight wood 
Swept the sudden god and stood 
Towering o'er the little faun 
And the horn he played upon. 
Anger and superb surprise 
Burned like sunset through his eyes : 
And the clustered listening trees 
Heard those climbing cadences 
Quaver underbreath — and fall 
Down one piteous interval 
To eclipse more faint and far 
Than the ruin of a star. 



Then the faun unshepherded, 
All his pulsing music dead, 
In a deep-breathed pallor prayed: 
"This my horn that I have made, 
Shaping it to joy of mine, 
I would give as men pour wine 
That the high gods may forgive : 
God of Shepherds — let me live I" 
So his darling instrument — 
Reed and flute divinely blent — 
At the god's dread feet he laid: 
— And Pan lifted it and played. . 



Go The Lyric Year 

What is truer than to dream? 

I have seen the amber stream 

Of the horn's translucent tone 

Take the sunlight: I have known — 

When the violins were faint — 

The gray wood-dove's low complaint, 

And the rosebreast's warbled fire, 

And the nightingale's desire, 

Hid within its singing wood 

That a faun first understood: 

I have felt his ecstasy 

Quivering and quick in me: 

Heard — and given breathless heed — 

Leagues of reed through one frail reed 

Down the night-wind sigh and call, 

With the moon's spell over all, 

When he first forgot his fear: 

I have watched the god draw near, 

And his anger — as he played — 

Into rich mute wonder fade. 

Once, the orchestra was mute 

In such wonder — and no flute 

Breathed, nor any violin : 

Only somewhere deep within 

The rapt consciousness there stirred 

Some dim music never heard. 



The Lyric Year 61 

Sudden-sweet — a cry outrang 
Zoned as though an orchid sang: 
Such an odor-breathing tone 
As the forest-god alone 
Could have fluted — wild of wing — 
Keen with human passioning — 
New — and in an instant grown 
As a heartbreak dear, 

Thine own, 
That bewildering song forlorn, 
Golden-throated pastoral horn! 
Thine that voice from all apart 
Tristan heard, when to his heart — » 
Steadfast o'er the endless foam — 
White Isolde trembled home! 



62 The Lyric Year 



HEARTHSTONE AND HIGHWAY 

HELEN COALE CREW 



T HAVE built me a home; 
A And out of the good green earth arise 
Its walls foursquare to the windswept skies 
Where clouds are fretted to foam; 
And faithfully over it all there lies 
The roof, the guardian of mine and me, 
Unyielding to all the storms that be, 
Or the winds that about it roam. 

I have shut me out from the night. 
Aroar in the chimney's generous girth 
The flames are leaping in rough red mirth; 
Love at the hearth, with hand in mine, 
Sits smiling, gracious and divine; 
And a little child-face beside my chair 
Glows in the flickering, roseate glare. 
I have shut me in with delight ! 



The Lyric Year 63 

O garden drowsy in the noon, 

My soul has full content 

Here where the poppies sway and swoon, 

And the hours dream towards the rising moon 

Till day and night are blent; 

Till the dusk is a-murmur with plaintive croon, 

And the sundial's shadows are spent! 



Faint and far are the nights to be, 
And the dawns that shall follow after. 
Close and warm at the heart of me 
My child's upbubbling laughter. 
Ghostly and dim the life that lies 
Beyond, with its frets and fears; 
For Love is kissing my drowsy eyes 
And stopping my heedless ears. 



And yet — did you hear? At the garden wall? 

My heart is beating to answer a call; 

A call that is urgent and wild; 

A call that lures me away from the nest — 

O God, that a soul should know unrest 
At home, with Love and a child! 



64 The Lyric Year 

II 

So wide is the world ! So wide ! 
And ever my soul at its leash is astrain 
For the alien joys that beckon amain, 
Afar, from the other side! 

See, the highway sweeps joyously by! 
And clear is the call that urges me — 
"Come out where life and adventure be ! 
Shall you hide yourself in restraining walls 
When the wind-swept universe beckons and 

calls? 
Come out into life, ere you die ! 
Broad is the path where it lies at your feet; 
But a thread it runs where heaven and earth 

meet; 
And at the horizon it dips and falls 
Under the blue of the beckoning seas 
Where a sail leans low as it turns and flees — " 

Who calls! Who calls! Who calls! 

Ill 

I am out on the world's great tide; 

The earth is before me, is mine! 

With stress and struggle my soul is beguiled, 

And the wind at my lips is wine ! 



The Lyric Year 65 

I mingle with cities and folk; 

Shoulder to shoulder I stride 

With life and events — I am free from the 

yoke! 
So wide is the world! So wide! 

The sea is smiling to the shore, 
Wine-dark and all unharvested 
As when, where'er adventure led, 
Ulysses sailed in days of yore, 
And met with hardships and delight 
Upon its bosom broad and bright. 

There's glamour on the glad green earth ! 

With dewy nights and glowing days, 

In open fields and wooded ways 

She brings new life to birth. 

And grassblades sharply spring to light 

Like Grecian spears on Trojan night. 

Behold, the sun uplifts his shield 

Blood-red, and dripping with the day! 

So lifts my heart to meet the fray 

Where pains or pleasures yield! 

So climbs the eager sap anew 

And stirs my pulses through and through! 



66 The Lyric Year 



IV 

A sombre cloud in the skies — 

Ever it grows with the fading day; 

Ever I see, though I turn away, 

Its blot, where the sunset lies. 

There is dust on my lips, and the sun grows 

gray, 
And my heart is faint with the lengthening day. 

A tender, plaintive cry — 

Ever it rings on my ears. 

Comes it out from the garden-plot 

Where joyous laughter is all forgot? 

Comes it from the still hearth-stone 

Where Love keeps guard alone? 

But I must put these memories by; 

The world has no time for tears. 

Nay, I will trudge on through sand and loam, 

And I will forget that Love was sweet — 

Ah God, that a heart should break for home 
When the highway unrolls at its feet! 



The Lyric Year 67 



TO A THRUSH 

THOMAS AUGUSTINE DALY 

C ING clear, O throstle ! 

. Thou golden-tongued apostle 

And little brown-frocked brother 

Of the loved Assisian! 

Sing courage to the mother, 

Sing strength into the man; 
For they, who in another May 

Trod Hope's scant wine from grapes of pain, 
Have tasted in thy song to-day 

The bitter-sweet red lees again. 
To them in whose sad May-time thou 
Sang'st comfort from thy maple bough 

To tinge the presaged dole with sweet, 
O prophet then, be prophet now 

And paraclete ! 

That fateful May ! The pregnant vernal night 
Was throbbing with the first faint pangs of 
day, 



68 The Lyric Year 

The while, with cosmic urge toward life and 
light, 
Earth-atoms countless groped their destined 
way; 
And one full-winged to fret 
Its tender oubliette, 
The warding mother-heart above it woke. 

Darkling she lay in doubt, then, sudden wise, 
Whispered her husband's drowsy ear and broke 
The estranging seal of slumber from his eyes : 
"My hour is nigh: arise!" 



Already, when, with arms for comfort linked, 

The lovers at an eastward window stood, 
The rosy day, in cloudy swaddlings, blinked 
Through misty green new-fledged in Wister 
Wood. 
Breathless, upon this birth 
The still-entranced earth 
Seemed brooding motionless in windless space. 

Then rose thy priestly chant, O holy bird! 
And heaven and earth were quickened with its 
grace; 
To tears were moved two wedded souls who 

heard, 
And one, unborn, was stirred! 



The Lyric Year 69 

O Comforter, enough that from thy green, 

Hid tabernacle in the wood's recess 
To those care-haunted lovers thou, unseen, 
Shouldst send thy flame-tipped song to cheer 
and bless. 
Enough for them to hear 
And feel thy presence near; 
And yet when he, regardful of her ease, 

Had led her back by brightening hall and 
stair 
To her own chamber's quietude and peace, 
One maple-bowered window shook with rare, 
Sweet song — and thou wert there ! 

Hunter of souls ! the loving chase so nigh 

Those spirits twain had never come before. 
They saw the sacred flame within thine eye; 
To them the maple's depths quick glory wore, 
As though God's hand had lit 
His altar fire in it, 
And made a fane, of virgin verdure pleached, 
Wherefrom thou might'st in numbers musi- 
cal 
Expound the age-sweet words thy Francis 
preached 
To thee and thine, of God's benignant thrall 
That broodeth over all. 



70 The Lyric Year 

And they, athirst for comfort, sipped thy song, 

But drank not yet thy deeper homily. 
Not yet, but when parturient pangs grew strong, 
And from its cell the young soul struggled 
free — 
A new joy, trailing grief, 
A little crumpled leaf, 
Blighted before it bourgeoned from the stem — 

Thou wert, as fabled robin to the rood, 
A minister of charity to them; 

And from the shadows of sad parenthood 
They heard and understood. 

Makes God one soul a lure for snaring three? 

Ah! surely; so this nursling of the nest, 
This teen-touched joy, ere birth anoint of thee, 

Yet bears thy chrismal music in her breast. 
Five Mays have come and sped 
Above her sunny head, 
And still the happy song abides in her. 

For though on maimed limbs the body creeps, 
It doth a spirit house whose pinions stir 

Familiarly the far cerulean steeps 

Where God His mansion keeps. 

So come, O throstle ! 

Thou golden-tongued apostle 



The Lyric Year 71 

And little brown-frocked brother 

Of the loved Assisian! 
Sing courage to the mother, 

Sing strength into the man; 
That she who in another May 

Came out of heaven, trailing care, 
May never know that sometimes gray 

Earth's roof is and its cupboards bare. 
To them in whose sad May-time thou 
Sang'st comfort from thy maple bough, 

To tinge the presaged dole with sweet, 
O prophet then, be prophet now 

And paraclete ! 



72 The Lyric Year 

YE WHO ARE TO SING 

OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN 

f\ SILENCE of all silences, where wait 
^^ Fame's unblown years, whose choir my 

soul would greet! 
Graves, nor dead Time, are sealed so dumb in 
fate, 
For Death and Time must pass on echoing 

feet. 
No grass-locked vault, no sculptured winding- 
sheet, 
No age embalmed hour with mummied wing, 
Is bosomed in such stillness, vast, complete, 
As wraps the future, and no prayer may bring 
From that unfathomed pause one minstrel mur- 
muring. 

Yet never earth a lyreless dawn shall know; 
No moon shall move unharped to her gray 
home; 
No midnight wreathe its chain of choric glow 
But answering eye flash rhythmic to the 
dome. 



The Lyric Year 73 

No path shall lie too deep in forest gloam 
For the blithe singer's tread; no winds fore'er 

Blow lute-lorn barks o'er unawakened foam; 
Nor hidden isle sleep so enwaved but there 
Shall touch and land at last Apollo's mariner. 

And soon shall wake that morrow's melody, 
When men of labor shall be men of dream, 
With hand seer-guided, knowing Deity, 

That breathes in sonant wood and fluting 

stream, 
Shapes, too, the wheel, the shaft, the shoul- 
dering beam, 
Nor ceased to build when Magian toil began 
To lift its towered world. What chime su- 
preme 
Shall turn our tuneless march to music when 
Sings the achieving God from conscious hearts 
of men? 

And one voice shall be woman's, lifting lay 
Till all the lark heights of her being ring; 

Majestic she shall take the chanted way, 
And every song-peak's golden bourgeoning 
Shall thrill beneath her feet that lyric spring 

From ventured crest to crest. Strong, master- 
less, 
She, last in freedom, as the first shall sing, 



74 The Lyric Year 

Who, great in freedom, takes by Love her 

place, 
Wife, mother, more, her starward-moving self 

— the race. 



Ay, ye shall come, ye spirits girt with light 

That falls o'er heaven's hills from dawn to 
be; 
Ye warders in the planet house of night, 

Gliding to unguessed doors with prophet- 
key, 

And out where dim paths stir with minstrelsy 
Wordless and strange to man, until your clear, 

Doubt-shriven strain interprets to the clay. 
O, might I hear ye as the world shall hear, 
Nearer, a poet's journey, to the Golden Yearl 



Dear, honored bards of centuries dim and sped, 

Yet glowing ever in your fadeless song, 
No dust shall heap its silence o'er ye dead, 
No cadent seas shall drown your choral 

strong 
In more melodious waves. I've lingered 
long 



The Lyric Year 75 

By your brave harps strung for eternity; 
But now runs my wild heart to meet the 
throng 
Who yet shall choir. O wondrous company, 
If graves may listen then, I then shall listen- 
ing be ! 



76 The Lyric Year 



COMRADES 

FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS 

"V^OU need not say one word to me, as up 
A the hill we go, 

(Night-time, white-time, all in the whispering 
snow;) 

You need not say one word to me, although 
the hoary trees 

Seem strange and old as pagan priests in sway- 
ing mysteries. 

You need not think one thought of me, as up 
the trail we go, 

(Hill-trail, still-trail, all in the hiding snow;) 

You need not think one thought of me, al- 
though a hare runs by, 

And off behind the tumbled cairn we hear a 
red fox cry. 

O, good and rare it is to feel, as through the 

night we go, 
(Wild-wise, child-wise, all in the secret snow,) 



The Lyric Year 



11 



That we are free of heart and foot as hare and 

fox are free, 
And yet that I am glad of you and you are 

glad of me! 



78 The Lyric Yfiir 



SONG 

MARION DELCOMYN 

IKE the south-flying swallows, the summer 
■"■^ has flown, 

Like a fast-falling star, from unknown to un- 
known 
Life Hashes and falters and fades from our 
sight : 

Good-night, O my friend, — good-night ! 

Like the home-coming swallows that seek the 

old eaves. 
Like the buds that dream patiently under dead 

leaves, 
Love shall sleep in our hearts till our hands 

meet again: 

Until then, O my friend, — until then! 



The Lyric Year 79 



JETSAM 

In Memory of the Sinking of the "Titanic" 
HERMAN MONTAGU DONNER 

HF ONED by what dread immensity 

^^ Is thy horizon, once so free, 

That intermittent in thine eyes 

Thou harborest grief for all that dies — 

Thou who hast come among these hills 

For strength and solace from all ills? 

'Tis but a year hence we o'erscanned 

The circumjacent leagues of land 

From these copse-cinctured, cliff-perched 

towers, 
And reckoned every rapture ours. 
What one of that smooth round of hours 
Could thus with unimagined shock 
Thy wonted gates of gladness lock, 
And set beyond the bounds we see 
New challenge in Infinity? 

Why should I not from these thy hills, 
Thou askst, find balm for all my ills? 



80 The Lyric Year 

Thy untried soul divineth not 
How Fate's Vandalic stroke can blot 
Life's ordered manuscript, and sweep 
The unwitting scribe to endless sleep, 
Choosing to snatch his fluent pen 
From jest and song and schemes of men. 



Why may I glean not from thy hills 
The comfort craved for crowding ills? 
Because from out these uplands wide 
Is conjured forth a swelling tide, 
Whereon each wooded ridge and knoll 
Heaves suddenly, as if to roll 
With Titan rage against these walls, 
And lash them till their ruin falls, 
Gulfed deeper than thy deepest dell: 
Aye, even to the maw of hell — 
That hell I glimpsed once, months ago; 
That hell I all my days must know: 
When man's last steel leviathan, 
Vaunting a thousand brilliant eyes 
And funnels belching to the skies, 
Proved, at Fate's touch, his pygmy span, 
And joined, on sands where none explore, 
Sea-caravans stalled evermore ! 



The Lyric Year 81 

Nay, each of those snow-mantled peaks 
Of doom inexorable speaks: 
In each I watch a Phantom rear, 
Waiting till man draw hapless near, 
To turn his awe to sudden fear, 
His levity to panic screams; 
And drop upon his futile dreams, 
His puny and presumptuous stir, 
A ruthless, last extinguisher. 

When on this tower the wind-flails shiver, 
I feel again the doomed boat quiver, 
And see a dim white mass rush by, 
Grim with the writ of Destiny 
Launched careless from the unseen Pole 
By the unheeding Over-Soul! 

The ripping of our flank I hear; 
The jests and laughter quenched in fear; 
The davits' squeak of boats swung out; 
The surging murmur; thunderous shout; 
The rush of multitudinous feet; 
The pistols' crack; morose retreat; 
The shrieks of wounded on the deck; 
The women's cries men soothe and check; 
The stoic band, who, sinking, play 
Their own and others' pangs away; 



11 



82 The Lyric Year 

The creak of ropes and splash of keels 
Far down the dark abreast, whence swells 
A sound of moanings and farewells, 
And beat of oars that fainter steals, 
That Hope's deceiving beads still tells 
For women whose self-sentenced men 
Shall never clasp their hands again, 
But, yielding life in sight of them, 
Accept the sea's stern requiem! 



Aye, shudder, friend ! Thou canst not know 

In all thy days a tithe the woe 

That surged to birth on that sea-waste 

In anguished thousands ghastly-faced, 

Trapped in their floating manse of pride, 

Magnate and pauper side by side : 

Both, bubbles whom the dread point nears 

Of Fate's inexorable shears: 

Some, throe-wrung, shrieking, praying vain, 

Cursing the Summoner's disdain; 

Some, wives sublimely fate-defiant, 

In husbands' circling arms reliant, 

Steeled with staunch faith through choking 

breath 
To eye unmoved the stare of Death: 



The Lyric Year 83 

Thrust through the portals long before 

Their crushed shells reach the unfathomed 

floor, 
To seek the tombless millions sped: 
The aeons' covenantless dead. 

How I, sucked down in the abysm, 
Passed shriven through the cataclysm, 
Loosening Death's fingers from my hair, 
Scarce am I fully now aware. 
I feel Leviathan's last heave 
With frightful hiss and roar, as cleave 
The swirling waters upward . . . then 
Half doubting, I breathe air again, 
Rave up to Heaven compassionate, 
Battle eternal moments, and 
Cramp to some rower's pitying hand, 
Swooning that unto ghoulish Fate 
Stark, spectral arms still supplicate. 

And when Dawn final rescue brings, 
The world is one of new-charged things, 
For o'er the sea's sepulchral path 
Broods Desolation's aftermath. 

Thus, friend, thy soft and radiant hills 
Lend but scant solace for my ills; 



84 The Lyric Year 

O'er their serenity I yet 

See Destiny's dark riddle set. 

Why hast Thou, Over-Soul, Force, God, 
Made chaff of our aspiring clod? 
Let Death in plans securest lurk, 
Mocking our proudest handiwork? 
Wouldst Thou with purging stroke impress 
Athwart Man's pride his nothingness, 
And from the elements' expanse 
Shape rods for his arch-arrogance? 
Wouldst Faith restore unto her own, 
Since baffled Reason flees her throne? 
Or wouldst Thou of Man's carnal sense 
Strip the veneer and the pretense, 
To show beneath how he is Thine, 
Strung of a fibre still divine, 
Which harper Death's rapt finger-tips 
Sweep to sublime apocalypse? 



The Lyric Year 85 

AWAKENING 

JULIA CAROLINE RIPLEY DORR 

~^\OST thou remember how that one fair 
LJ day 

Dawned just as other days? Earth gave no 

sign, 
Nor did far heaven proclaim the gift divine 
It held in store for us, as buds of May 
Pledge the year's wealth of fruitage, or as clay 
Guards the rich promise of the slumbering vine : 
And I, half child, dreamed of no rarer wine 
Than Life had poured in my gold cup alway. 

Then suddenly, as out of darkling space 

One sees the glory of the evening star 

Clear shining through the cloud-rifts floating 

by, 

Love touched my eyelids, and I saw thy face. 
That day was in no earthly calendar; 
Only God knew it, dear, and thou and I. 



86 The Lyric Year 



ZAMBOANGA 

SUSAN DYER 

7 AMBOANGA! Zamboanga! 

^^ With the moonlight on the sea 
And the blue hills of Basilan 
Looming up mysteriously! 
Does the little darkling river 
Still go whispering through the town 

Where strange Southern stars are mirrored 
With the palm-fronds peering down? 
Do the countless shifting fireflies 

Keep their lamps alight for me 
In dreamful Zamboanga — 
Zamboanga! Zamboanga! — 
World-distant Zamboanga 

By the moon-enchanted sea? 

Ah, those nights in Zamboanga when we sat, 
just you and I, 
On the Fort's dry crumbling shell of tran- 
sient power; 



The Lyric Year 87 

While, above, the vast Armadas of all time 
went sailing by, 
And we watched their signals flashing hour 
on hour; 
And a dance-drum throbbed insistent in the 
Moro town below 
With a secret, savage rhythm e'er repeating: 
"No To-morrow! No To-morrow!" — (ran 
the endless burden so?) — 
Till within our very veins we felt it beating. 



Sweet those days in Zamboanga under staring 
tropic skies 
In our little boat with sails hibiscus-tinted, 
When the painted vintas passed us like gigan- 
tic butterflies 
And we followed where their wakes of opal 
glinted; 
Sweet the eves we rode together through the 
Gorge's fragrant peace 
Where we heard the warning voice of waters 
falling, 
Where the broken-hearted pigeons sobbed un- 
seen among the trees: 
"No To-morrow! No To-morrow!" — they 
were calling. 



88 The Lyric Year 

It has faded, it is over, and the dance-drums 
throb no more, 
And the glamour only lingers in our dream- 
ing; 
Not for you these plaintive melodies are 
wafted from the shore, 
Not for me these tragic sunsets now are 
gleaming: 
Unforgotten! . . . Had we tasted while the 
well was brimming sweet, 
Ah, perhaps we had not drunk such bitter 
sorrow, 
Had not heard these mocking memories so end- 
lessly repeat: 
"No To-morrow! No To-morrow! No 
To-morrow!" 

Zamboanga! Zamboanga! 

With the moonlight on the sea 
And the blue hills of Basilan 
Looming up mysteriously! 
Softly moans the little river 
Through the silence of the town 

Where the Southern Cross is mirrored 
Through the branches blazing down: 
Still the madcap, soulless fireflies 

Light their lamps . . . but not for me, 



The Lyric Year 



8 9 



In faery Zamboanga — 
Zamboanga! Zamboanga! — 
In long-lost Zamboanga 
By the opalescent sea! 



90 The Lyric Year 

THE DEAD 

GEORGE DYRE ELDRIDGE 

CJ^HEY have given us death for our portion, 

the strange Gods hundred-named ; 
And one shall lie by the side of death, naked 

and unashamed; 
And the days shall forget in their gladness, and 

the nights with their stars forget, 
The eyes that have looked in the eyes of Death, 

the wonder and pain of it. 

But the Dead have seen the splendor of the 
dimmed and flamed-out stars; 

And they have seen the battle-front of long- 
forgotten wars. 

For them has the Earth lain silent in the depths 
of the silent night; 

For them were the days of travail and doubt, 
and the joys of light. 

They were glad as they sat at their feasting, 
and the wine of their cups was red; 

They were men in their lusting and wronging, 
till the years of their lusting were sped; 



The Lyric Year 91 

They were saints in the days of their waiting, 

and the days of their waiting were long; 
They were sinners who joyed in their sinning, 

and the might of their sinning was strong. 
They stood at the morning of ages, and the 

lure of their eyes was life; 
They laughed in the strength of their manhood, 

and joyed at the splendor of strife. 
They died, and the hour of their dying was 

the dawn of a people's sway; 
They are dumb, but the cry of the living is loud 

at the gates of day. 

We come from the chambers of silence, the 

gift of the Gods is breath. 
We go to the chambers of darkness, and the 

gift of the Gods is death. 



92 The Lyric Year 



THE SEA-GULL 

JOHN ERSKINE 

TXT HEN I weary lay on the barren sand — 
" * Din of the sea-fret in my ears, 
Salt of the sea-breath on my lips; 
When I felt through earth the shock of waters 
That, spilling from angry crests their spindrift, 
Reared to whelm the immovable strand 
And shattered themselves, shattered them- 
selves, 
Splashed and spread up, limp and formless, 
Sliding together down again with a harsh de- 
feated roar! — 
Skyward suddenly I gazed, 
And there, white arrow in the blue, 
A sea-gull sped to sea. 

Flying straight, wings leisurely beating 
Like the flapping sails of a tide-drawn boat, 
Borne it seemed by a hidden motion; 
It heard the land-clatter, the human shrillness, 
It heard the earth-shock in the siege of ocean, 
As passing over it shot into silence — 



The Lyric Year 93 

Swiftest when just above me, 

Then slower and slower, as farther and farther 

It shrunk in the sun to a little mote, 

Till the speed of it seemed as rest. 

The sky-edge around it, the perfect circle, 
Blue without cloud the vault above it, 
Noiseless below, inexhaustible welcome, 
The fathomless bosom's heave and sway, 
Indigo valleys, green slopes and ridges 
Marble-veined where the rhythm exuberant 
Creams, as the waterfolds lap and crease — 
Was it the sea-gull that folded its wings 
At the centre of peace? 

Or was it my soul? 



94 The Lyric Year 



THE FAUN 

GENEVIEVE FARNELL-BOND 

COMETIMES you hear me in the dawn, 

^ The little-horned, fleet-footed Faun; 

You see a ripple as I pass 
And shake the dew-pearls from the grass : 
A shadow through the gray morass 
So quickly gone. 

Lo, when the first faint-throated note 

Of feathered songster is afloat, 
A soft call on the silver air 
Will tell you that the Faun is there, 
To lure you to his leafy lair 
Through paths remote. 

I hide to watch the ruddy sun 

Light up each dew-globe, one by one, 

Until, with opalescent blaze, 

Aspangle is the rosy haze 

That lies along the wooded ways 
Where I have run. 



The Lyric Year 95 

And when the gold god of the day 
Comes wheeling up the azure way, 
Sometimes I pipe on flutes of Pan 
Soft pulsings never made of man, 
To stir his spirit if I can 
With sweet dismay. 

One day I lay at gilded noon 

With calm content half in a swoon — 
The world ablaze with torrid heat 
Beyond this leafy green retreat — 
But here the brown earth, cool and sweet, 
Ajoy with June. 

And then she came ... all clad in white, 

Her eyes mysterious as night; 

Her lips were red and ripe and young, 
Her hair a faint gold halo flung; 
About her all the fragrance clung 
Of youth's delight. 

And as she lay in leafy vale 

She sang a melancholy tale: 

"Though Love has never come to me, 
To-morrow I a wife must be, 
The church all sweet with melody 
And roses pale; 



g6 The Lyric Year 

I shall have wealth and brave attire, 

And all the people shall admire; 

Though callow youth might term him cold, 
Though he be what the world calls old, 
All shall be bought with gleaming gold 
In my desire." 

Nimbly I blew a little tune, 

And trembling stopped to softly croon 
Until the maiden fell asleep, 
Lest she should hear me shyly creep 
Beside her in the grasses deep ! . . . 
And then, eftsoon 

I bent me to her shell-pink ear 

And whispered that her heart might hear: 
"Lo, all about you in the grass, 
In every cranny that you pass, 
Is brighter wealth than men amass 
With toil and tear: 

"And little lovers, two by two, 
With hearts that sing and wildly woo; 
And all the voices in the trees 
Are throbbing with love's rhapsodies; 
And these alone shall bring heart's ease 
To such as you; 



The Lyric Year 97 

(Afar the wild thrush knows his mate 

And calls to her with heart elate) 
Ah, to your lips this kiss I press, 
And conjure dreams with deft caress: 
O Love comes in swift eagerness: 
I bid you wait!" 



98 The Lyric Year 



KISA-GOTAMI 



ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE 

"V^OUNG Kisa-Gotami, the purely fair 

As a white pearl brought from the un- 
known caves 
Of sparkling sea — she who was late the song 
Within her father's house — now being wed, 
Bore a frail man-child, in whose little face 
The flickering light of life for one day shone 
And then departed like a mystery. 

Thereupon, when her strength had half re- 
turned, 
Still clasping to her breast the lifeless form 
None dared take from her, Kisa-Gotami. 
Wandered the streets — -as though her weary 

feet 
Sought for some marvel, seen in vision strange, 
Which should restore the child and to a dream 
Turn the bewildered anguish of her soul. 
When noon was golden down the waving fields, 
And when the purple shadows of the dusk 



The Lyric Year 99 

Crept from the hills, still the poor traveller 
Stayed not her aimless passagings, distraught, 
Wandering with the wandering moon. At 

dawn, 
Passing beyond the borders of the town 
Unto a grove of pipal trees, she came 
On a low hill-side, where Siddhartha — whom 
Light smote in Gaya with revealing beam 
And men thereafter called the Buddha — risen 
For meditation in the clear sweet air 
Of early morning, sat in deep repose. 
And looking with wild eyes up to his face, 
Whereon the aspect of a holy man 
Brooded ineffably, a sudden flood 
Of utterance from her long-unopened lips 
Poured — as a river, feeling close ahead 
The presence of the wide infinite sea, 
Rolls with a sudden and importunate gush 
Its troubled current into the calm deep. 

"O Lord, my grief exceeds all mortal grief. 
I shall not ever look on peace again 
Unless I find the herb. Somewhere on earth 
It must be growing now. Thy face is kind, 
And wise as with great knowledge. I am worn 
With seeking; and I am not wise. O Lord, 
Canst thou not help me in my hour of pain?" 



ioo The Lyric Year 

To her the Buddha, with compassionate eyes, 
Spake — "What is this thou seekest?" 

And she said — 
"I seek the herb that bringeth life again," 
While her glance touched the dead child in her 
arms. 

Then the deep eyes of Buddha dwelt on her, 
Seeming to fold her in a brooding gaze 
Of comprehension and profoundest thought, 
Wherein the tides of pity rose and fell 
And swept beyond her, as his inward sight 
Opened on wider vistas and beheld 
The web of sorrow that enfolds the world. 
Until at length his musings died away, 
And his heart saw her like a pitiful dove 
Smitten and sinking in the lost abyss. 

Gently he looked upon her, and then spake — 

"Be thou not troubled: let the dawnlight lay 
Cool fingers on thy brow; go thou in peace 
Into the city; there a simple herb 
Thou shalt procure — a grain of mustard seed, 
The commonest thing that grows. Of such is 
made 



The Lyric Year 101 

The cure for all thy grief, and this thy child. 
Heed only this — if from its strength shall come 
Aught that may profit thee in thy desire, 
Thou must obtain it from a happy home 
Wherein nor child nor spouse nor sire has 
died." 

Then Kisa-Gotami, white gentle one, 
Laughed aloud for joy, crying — "I go, I go." 
With simple trust, before the Buddha's feet 
She laid the dead child; and then turned in 

haste 
And sped unto the city with light steps, 
Nor looked behind her. 

And the Buddha sat 
Brooding upon the hillside; strange slow 

thoughts 
Dwelt in his eyes, and voiceless mysteries 
Swept o'er his brow like cloud-shadows that 

move 
Across the silent mountain-slopes at noon. 
Thus meditation ruled upon his soul 
While the dawn spent its pale and gorgeous 

gleams, 
And morning rose out of the wine-hued east 
Into a dome of turquoise, and the sun 



102 The Lyric Year 

Measured its noontide height, to sink again 
Slowly to westward. 

Softly from the west 
Came the first evening breath ; and with it came, 
Out of the city, Kisa-Gotami, 
With quiet steps. And in her eyes the light 
Glimmered less wildly under the pale brow, 
As to the Buddha she held out her hands — - 
Empty: she smiled; and tears fell; and she 
spake. 

"0 Lord, my search is ended, and I know. 
Unto each home I went, and begged of each 
A little boon — a grain of mustard-seed. 
And all with uttermost kindness would have 

given, 
Save that I asked if child or spouse or sire 
Out of their midst had died; and every house 
Replied — 'Nay, we have lost a well-loved one.' 
From door to door I passed, but still the same. 
Until at length a grave and aged man 
Answered me — 'Child, the living are but few, 
The dead are many.' And the sudden thought 
Filled me of all the other mourning hearts; 
And in the great grief I became but one — 
A tiny mote amid immensities 



The Lyric Year 103 

Of the world's sorrow; and their kinship spread 
Like a warm cloak around me: I beheld 
All other burdened souls stretch out to me 
Infinite sisterhood. That which was I 
Ceased then to be; I knew myself a part 
Lost in the greater life. And lo ! my soul 
Seemed purged and lightened and no more 

afraid 
Even of the pain that filled it. Now I come 
To bear my dead unto my home again, 
And give him sepulture, and strew young 

flowers, 
And reassume what life may hold." 

Deep speech 
Trembled upon the Buddha's lips, and ebbed 
As ebbs a great tide on a starless shore. 
And stretching forth his hand, in the last dusk 
Of ghostly twilight, he, with voice wherein 
Dwelt all the joys and sorrows of the world 
And the wild bitterness and the final calm, 
Spake gently, — "My disciple, go in peace." 



104 The Lyric Year 



THE GLIMPSE 

LOUISE AYRES GARNETT 

T BEAT upon closed doors; 
A My hands are numb, 
The oaken walls are mute, 
The bolts are dumb. 

Although my spirit plead, 
My strength demand, 

Unthrobbing stands the oak 
Beneath my hand. 

I beat upon closed doors: 

Doors, respond! 
Once through a shining rift 

1 saw Beyond . . . 



The Lyric Year 105 



TO A POET 

MARGARET ROOT GARVIN 

TXTHEN none besides was near to 
* " speak, 

Thy singing spoke to me; 
When Sorrow was my only guest, 
Thy grief was company. 

Thy loss was comrade to mine own, 
Though years and seas apart; 

I bless thee for the brave despair 
That brothered my sick heart. 

No lyric word or wistful sigh 
Hath stirred thy lips for long; 

Yet I do thank thee with my tears, 
Requite thee with my song. 



106 The Lyric Year 

SO AS YOU TOUCH ME I DREAM 

FRANCES GREGG 

A H, in the dusk are you there — heart of the 
^ *■ heart of me, 

What are you thinking? 
Your hands in my hands, 
And the life in us leaps to the sound of your 
dreams. 
O my Beauty of Beauty — 
Bend me your head in the dusk — O my flower ! 

Purple Iris border the streams, 
And the streams flow clear to a pool without 

ripple ; 
Silent, clear and untroubled is this pool of your 
love, 
White Iris grow on the border. 

My aching dry lips reach out for you in the 

dusk there; 
Touch me with wine — the juice of the grape, 
O my Harp — my gold-stringed one ! 



The Lyric Year 107 

Purple and gold of the Iris — I hear the 
singing — 
Whisper and rustle of reeds by the river, 
Golden and white are the Iris my thoughts 
are, 
Hovering over the stream. 

Touch my brow with your hands — O my 

dreamer of dreams — 
White petals of flowers are your fingers. 

Ah, — I am weary — 
Do you glow in the dusk where you sit — 
Strange power unfolding me? 
Or what is the splendor I see? 

Ah, the white glow of the upstanding Sword- 
flower, 
That borders the river of dreams! 



108 The Lyric Year 

THE MERCIFUL ENSIGN 

HERMANN HAGEDORN 



pHYSICIAN, the battle is done! 



Leave the wounded that slunk from the 
fight! 
In the valley a thousand and one 

Cannot outlive the night!" 
Quoth the surgeon: "I come anon!" 

"Physician, three comrades of mine 

Lie stiff, and three lie racked 
With wounds." 'Twas an old ensign 

Famished and battle-hacked: 
But the surgeon was careless and fine; 

And quoth, "I stay where I stand. 

I've enough to tend till the day." 
But the ensign's eyes command, 

And the ensign points the way 
And leads him forth by the hand. 

The surgeon spoke never a word, 
And out of the reeking tent 



The Lyric Year 109 

Into the powder-blurred 

And vague moonlight they went, 
Where the dead, unsepulchred, 

Pillowed the writhing quick. 

The surgeon was young. He reeled. 
His tongue curled and grew thick; 

A heaving sea was the field. 
He gasped, and, dizzy and sick, 

Staggered, blind through the dark; 

And groans he heard, and cries, 
Where he deemed was never a spark; 

And bent over and stared into eyes 
Staring and stony and stark. 

And the ensign, like a ghoul, 

Led on through the smoke and the stench. 
They saw the corpse-thieves prowl, 

And once, in an unseen trench, 
Stumbled, and jowl to jowl 

Lay with the terrible dead. 

And the surgeon, painted with gore 
Long cold, belched, and livid with dread, 

Crawled forth, but went on once more, 
And the ensign clutched him and led. 



no The Lyric Year 

And came to a barn at last 

Where three dead troopers lay, 

And other three, far past 

All helping, writhed on the hay; 

Burnt by the powder-blast, 

And flaming from garment and hair. 

"What can you do for these?" 
The surgeon gazed down in despair. 

They were boys who clutched at his knees 
With bones and entrails bare. 

"Nothing." The ensign gripped 

The surgeon's arm: "Are you sure?" 

Quoth the surgeon, pallid-lipped: 
"Those wounds no man can cure." 

And went. But the ensign ripped 

His dirk forth, and bending nigher 
The tortured shapes, upcaught 

Their burning hair — in dire 

Woe, as they weakly fought — 

Cut their throats. The barn was their pyre. 



The Lyric Year m 

MONARCH AND MENDICANT 

JULIAN HAWTHORNE 

V/f Y heart was as a cloud, at night 

Born on a naked mountain height, 
Cold — -cold and white, 
Unpregnant of desire 
To give, or to require 
To stoop, or to aspire. 

Stealthily, subtilely creeping, 
Silence — silence keeping, 
Subduing sea and dry land, 
Shore and reluctant island, 
Upward and onward drawn, 
Appeared the unimaginable dawn! 

Brighter, brighter, higher 
Soared shafts of quivering fire — - 
Gold-feathered arrows flying, aiming nigher, 
Ever nigher my virgin battlement! 
Bannered armies Orient 
Scaling earth's steep ascent, 
Stampeding night's dark horses in their cherub 
ire! 



112 The Lyric Year 

They storm — they storm my citadel! I burn 

Like a rose — like an urn 

Molten with living flame — 

Lambent with life in-pouring! 

Trembling, wondering, adoring, 

Heedless of blame or shame, 

I voyage, ah, whither? — never to return, 

Never! — to that chill eyrie whence I came! 

The victor sun has hailed me where I float 
Like a pearly boat 
In spangled seas remote: 
Laughing, the radiant corsair boards me, prize 
Of his all-conquering eyes! 
Onward we steer, 

Breasting broad waves of opal atmosphere, 
Domed with the sweep of Heaven's immensi- 
ties! 



Fain would I then from quarries chaste of air 
Erect a palace fair ' 

Wherein my lord and I in peace may dwell : 
Let marble's soul ascend in breathless towers 
O'er beds of down and silver-winnowed bow- 
ers — 
Bastions buttressed well 



The Lyric Year 113 

With spiritual snow 

Round our love-gardens throw 

Their majesty, to guard this home of ours 

This home enskied of maiden passion-flowers ! 

All that deep noon of day 

Heart to beating heart we lay, 

And oh, love had his way! 

His flaming bridegroom ardors thrill 

The resonant chords of my consenting soul, 

Taking insatiable toll 

Of joys long lingering their thirst to fill, 

Till the brimmed vase of ichor jolting spill 

Its freight celestial ! Rapt we take our flight 

On pinions irrecoverable of delight 

To summits where senses cease, quenched in 

the might 
Of intimations from abodes 
Of beings fit to mate with gods ! 
Anon by wistful windings languorous 
Of amaranthine pathways slow descending, 
Panting, with drowsy eyelids amorous, 
We sigh to breathe again the sweet of that 

love-blending ! 

Ah, safe — so safe I seemed from harms ! 
Slumber possessed him, even in my arms ! 



H4 The Lyric Year 

While secret through my veins strange stirrings 

ran 
Of mystic Woman melting into Man! 
Forgetting the inevitable fate 
Of mortal measured by immortal state, 
I saw each atom of my being bound 
Fast in the golden round 
Of his eternity! 

Merged in one glorious identity — 
One shining mesh of interwoven life — 
Fearless forever of the impending knife 
Of that one pitiless Sister of the Three — 
Forever! sang my soul aloud — 
I, creature of a day, a sun-illumined cloud! 

Rash song, how vainly sung! 

For suddenly aloft in darkness drest 

Hovered a shape that flung 

Harsh shadow o'er my love-warmed nest! 

Who dares thus to invade 

Our peace? — I would have said — 

But horror silenced me — my lord was gone, 

My bridegroom, from my side! Aye, he had 

flown 
Swifter than dream, and was not! And a 

swarm 
Of goblins ominous of wreck and storm 



The Lyric Year 115 

Hatefully rioted where had been the tent, 
A moment past, of love and blandishment! 
Of their foul rage I, maddened, seemed now 

soul 
And leader, hounding on to what mad goal! 
Black mists coiled, lit by terrible intervals 
Of snaky brightness hissed from riven walls 
Toppling chaotic: in headlong crash and roar 
Of volleying reverberations hoarse-resounding 
And muttering unendingly, they fell ! Gray as 

a shore 
Wasted by waves tempestuously pounding 
Through desolate ages — fantastic with wild 

shapes 
Of crags and thunder-bolted capes, 
Lay the cloud island of my dream dispelled, 
Nay, mine own corpse, love-murdered, unan- 

eled, 
Unmourned, save by the comfortless cold rain 
Down-dropping like gray blood of ghosts un- 
timely slain ! 

Howbeit, in that swoon, methought there came 
Two spirits, one of ice, the other, flame. 
The first said — Change alone has sway 
Supreme : strong adamant to Change must yield 
Even as the rathe wild-rose of an April field: 



1 1 6 The Lyric Year 

The JEon is twin-sister of the Day: 
Immortal Soul itself would die, 
Were Change not soul of immortality! 
Quoth the other — Hollow were Life's festival, 
Angels and men how poor, did Change rule 

all! 
Shall he who bent the Heavens and delved the 

Abyss 
Vouchsafe no talisman mightier than this 
To curb the questionings of the awful Mind? 
The rose of April changes with the wind- 
Never the archetypal Rose 
In Paradise that blows! 
Change is but a mask, concealing ill 
The changeless lineaments of eternal Will — 
And Will is love!— But Love unveiled must 

kill! 
Muttered the first. No further answer deigned 
The other: and they parted. I remained 
Long pondering there alone. 
At last, wrought marvellously, I saw the throne 
Of westering Day glow on the glowing sea, 
A palpitating pageantry 
Of many a wreath of gold profusely strewn, 
Panels of chrysophrase and amethyst, 
Banners wove of crimson mist, 
From jewelled towers out-thrown: 



The Lyric Year 117 

And high, high aloft, 

Floating on wings that flushed with hues as 

soft 
As meadow-flowers in Spring, 
Seraphs in nuptial chorus seemed to sing! 

Midmost of that array, 

A mendicant, astray, 

I crouched bewildered. Gloriously upraised 

On the great throne sat One whose aspect 
blazed 

Effulgent, beautiful, benign, 

Centre and source of life and love condign — 

And yet my bridegroom — mine ! 

Monarch and mendicant there each other faced, 

He, robed and crowned, she naked and dis- 
graced! 

Was it perchance to witness stern decree 

Of death or banishment fulfilled on me 

That Elements of earth and air 

Seemed thronging, murmuring round me 
there ? — 

Or was it but the murmuring of the sea, 

And wavering thoughts of joys unborn or dead 

That my strained sense misled? 

I raised my eyes to look at him; but shone 

So blinding bright his countenance, mine own 



1 1 8 The Lyric Year 

Perforce again I bowed, 

And silence far and wide held all the listening 
crowd ! 

The King his sceptre lifts ! I hear or seem to 

hear — 
What voice of yearning music!— "Draw> thou 

near, 
Beloved, clothed in splendor, as my Queen, 
And be thou seated here!" 
Upon which words, behold! a dazzling sheen 
Miraculous of raiment, dyed 
In gold and purple pride, 
Graces my limbs astonished: on my brow 
Stars, diademed, sparkle! Now 
Borne onward as a royal bride, 
I rest my lord beside, 
While lutes low warble and pure trumpets blow 1 

My heart was as a cloud, a livelong day 
Adrift on tides of air; some time the play 
Of soul-creating passion; some time torn 
By rebels of despair and scorn: 
Nor opened the apocalyptic Gate 
Of mortal and immortal fate ! 
But oh, what blessed word 
Was this which now I heard! — 



The Lyric Year 119 

"In earth or cloud or sun 

The soul of love is one : 

Love is thy soul and mine : 

Naught may our knot untwine ! 

Thee, in thy cloud pursued, 

Thee, not thy cloud, I wooed: 

The cloud dissolves, but we 

Of clouds henceforth are free, 

And all I am is thine, and I am all in thee!" 

The earth from light to dark reluctant 
wheeled, 

But lo ! another Earth in deathless dawn re- 
vealed! 



120 The Lyric Year 



THE MIDNIGHT FERRY 

MAX J. HERZBERG 

T CRIED to my God, 

A Leaning above the rhythmic ferry's side: 

Why do you stir my soul with churning yeast 

Of fevered discontent? 

With this vain struggle all my heart is spent — 

If I be man or beast! 

And whichsoe'er I be, 

I earn your righteous rod! 

Lo now! this twinkling sea, 

Relapsing and resurging with the tide, 

Is reckless in its beauty; the ships plod 

Hither and thither, and the yellow moon 

Dips towards the west unvexedly; 

The pale stars swoon 

In languid loveliness, and never thought nor 

care 
Disturbs them in their blue and griefless 

lair. 
Why am I thrall and all the world else free? 



The Lyric Year 121 

Then in my heart I heard the cry of the sea: 

A million years the sun has sucked me forth 

In viewless spirals through the burdened air — 

East, west, the winds have borne me, south 
and north, 

But to my hollow cave I come again. 

I have guessed the sorrows of the earth and 
men, 

And known all things: I have tracked ships 
mile by mile, 

And heard the sailors singing in the south 

Their homing song; 

The stars have gazed on me the whole night 
long; 

I have glassed the scaled and sprawling croco- 
dile, 

And twitched and dandled to and fro 

The Lotos-blow 

By mud-black fields a-wash with the old Nile; 

Within my heart gnarled monsters crawl 

And build their nests far from the swing of 
tides, 

Where the deep ocean pounds their shelly sides. 

But, God, shall this be all? 

My tongue is full of speech, 

My heart of words, but inarticulate 

I grope through Man into a stumbling mouth I 



122 The Lyric Year 

Beauty must know itself or else it hath no soul. 
Frame therefore thou my lips and teach 
My aching mumble till it shall grow plain! 
A thousand secrets I would prate 
That I gave ear to where my gossiping currents 

roll; 
But now there is not even the knowledge in me 
That I am not free. 

Beneath the moon so cried the sea in pain. 



The Lyric Year 123 



THE END 

C. HILTON-TURVEY 

HpHE moth hath found the candle-light, 

And I your eyes ! 
Lured from the blackness of the night, 

Could he surmise — 
Adventurous sprite winging his flight 

In airy guise — 
The panther-flame that leapt to blight 

His enterprise? 
Poor vagrant, now in sorry plight 

Shattered he lies: 
The moth hath found the candle-light, 

And I your eyes! 



124 The Lyric Year 



THE POET IN THE MARKET-PLACE 

MARGARET BELLE HOUSTON 



A BOUT the City's Market-place 

The pliant throngs press out and in. 
The seller lifts an eager face 

And cries his wares above the din. 



Here are the stalls of sunny fruit, 
Crimson and cool and purple-veined, 

And here are piled with mouths too mute 
Bright birds with soft breasts newly-stained. 

Here is the booth where one beats gold 
To twinkling rings or shining bands, 

And here are glistening, fold on fold, 
The silken looms of sunrise lands. 

Here are the vats of ripened wine. 

Joy! sings a voice, for him who quaffs! 
And here one leans and flings a coin, 

And laughs and drinks, and drinks and 
laughs. 



The Lyric Year 125 

And flitting bright, from stall to stall, 

Too beautiful, with eyes of fire, 
A woman, smiling light on all, 

Offers her painted lips for hire. 

About the City's Market-place 

The changing throngs pour out and in, 

But one there is with lifted face 
Cries not his wares above the din. 

Apart he sits, and all alone 

Beside the Market's outer stalls, 

Watching the sun drift o'er the stone 
And spread a rainbow down the walls. 

Strange ware hath he ! A lamp that glows 
With sun-pure light, whose flame doth start 

In oil of tears. A folded rose 

Sprung from the dust of Helen's heart. 

The wind-cry of a wandering shell, 
A font of moonlight from the South, 

A draft of heaven with dregs of hell — 
This kiss from Cleopatra's mouth. 

The nightingale's last note at eve 
Cloven with rapture's swift assail. 



126 The Lyric Year 

A faery scarf of misty weave 

Powdered with star-dust, bright and pale. 

And ah! (That few may know or see) 
Closed in this casket carved and sweet, 

Garnered in gloom of Calvary — 

The drops that fell from Jesu's feet. 

Lo ! Quiet holds the Market-place. 

The booths loom dark, a barren line. 
The woman with the painted face 

Goes forth with him who quaffed the wine, 

And he that sitteth all alone 

Looks sudden on an empty street. 

(The sun hath trailed adown the stone 
Dropping the rainbow at his feet.) 

He smiles — he sighs — the day is done ! 

How many passed his laden stall! 
How many saw there — -every one — 

Some folded parchments — that was all! 

Ah, Christ! The cruel Market-place! 

My Brother! (Soft! A tardy buyer!) 
The woman with the painted face 

Looks down in his with eyes of fire. 



The Lyric Year 127 

My Brother! (Canst thou then deny 
Thou art of closest kin with mef) 

Of all the throngs that came to buy 

Thank God that no man bought of thee! 

Tho } Sorrow take her burning toll, 

Tho' Hunger keep thee, hand in hand, 

Thou hast not bartered half thy soul 
To him who doth not understand! 



128 The Lyric Year 



I DREAMED THAT DREAM WAS 
QUENCHED 

GOTTFRIED HULT 

T DREAMED that Dream was quenched, 

And my heart blenched 
At how the world emptied itself of joy. 
Of Spring, erewhile so fresh, — 
Spring with the heart of trysting maid and boy, 
The spirit flower seemed gone to seed in flesh. 
Of Summer, with her sheen 
At the meeting-place of heavenly and terrene, 
Evanished, too, the soul! nor without it 
Was morning any longer exquisite. 
Forests, that are but seaweed of the sky, 
Like stranded ooze did seem of space gone dry. 
There was no mystery in things, no spell 
Of bird-song in the air, no nacre on the shell. 
No lingering afterglows of twilight eves, 
Nor autumn's red apocalyptic leaves, 
Oped Revery a visionary page. 
Rose drearily the sun, as in a cage 
Some tawny bulk, once leonine, upheaves 



The Lyric Year 129 

To be its living pendulum. The moon, 

Appearing moth-white from its cloud-cocoon, 

Became the murky wraith of old eclipse. 

No more the sea was Sea, 

Fathomless as to thought, eternity, 

In wonted might uphurled, 

But only the vast sepulchre of ships, 

Whose ghosts, at ebbing tide, 

Disbodied of incrusted wreckage, eyed 

Afar the stark, cold, and dismembered world. 



In that drear time, 

Man knew no longer youth or prime, 

The newly-born seemed old incredibly. 

A delver within ruined hills for ore, 

Ten thousand years or more, 

Emerged into white noon, had been as he, — 

So shriveled up with night, so cursed with 

grime. 
More terror than befalls from Nature's hand, 
When lancing a Volcano's pent-up ache, — 
More desolation than of fire and quake 
He wrought upon the land. 
For in the age's wake, 
Wonder and Song had ceased to be; 
And battle flags were rent for scullionry; 



130 The Lyric Year 

And Love was plucked as theme from the 

world's tomes. 
His pauseless fires I saw 
Burn brick with toil-won straw: 
Rose bastions, wherein Life immured itself; 
Rose glutless vaults of pelf; 
And everywhere were palaces and domes, — 
But Joy was not, nor any hush for Awe. 
Still Thought made feint to explore 
The universe for lore; 
But moulted was the very sense of truth, — 
Impossible save to miracle and youth! 
Nor work was wrought but bore 
Evidence that the heart within was blind, — 
That impotent is the dream-widowed mind. 
Thus Man strained on and on 
From futile deed to futile deed — and died: 
And the air clarified 

Of smoke from kilns and mills; and presently 
Afar I seemed to see 

Earth and the planets, hollow-eyed and hagged, 
In horrible hellish dance, that never flagged, 
About the bubbling caldron of the sun. 



The Lyric Year 131 



LITTLE BIG-HORN 

PERCY ADAMS HUTCHINSON 

' I ^HEIR trail is broad! the swift word came. 
Now sound to the saddle! Custer cried. 
The White Men rode like a scorching flame: 
The Red, like the whirlwind's bride. 

They met where the river cut the heights, 
With crash of carbine, with shout and yell: 

The White Men fought as the soldier fights: 
The Red, like the fiends of Hell. 

To their rock-fenced holds the Red Men rode : 
(O the wolf shall win through the might of 
the pack) 

To their skin-built huts the Red Men rode: 
The White Men, they came not back. 



132 The Lyric Year 



SECOND AVENUE 

ORRICK JOHNS 

TN gutter and on sidewalk swells 

The strange, the alien Disarray, 
Flung from the Continental hells, 
From Eastern dark to Western day. 

They pass where once the armies passed 
Who stained with splendid blood the land; 

But bloody paths grow hard with years 
And bloody fields grow rich and grand. 

Are you, O motley multitude, 

Descendants of the squandered dead, 

Who honored courage more than creeds 
And fought for better things than bread? 

The eternal twilight of the street 
Drives you to madness like a wine, 

To bastioned gates with bleeding feet, 

To walls that curse and locks that shine . . . 



The Lyric Year 133 

O curious poison! yellow fruit! 

Bright lotos that enchains the sense! 
That gives the maiden to the brute 

And power gives to Impotence ! 

That gives to man his blindest wish 
Of flaccid ease and flaming lust! — 

For gold you have grown feverish, 
And song has fallen into dust. 

For gold you drive the alien slaves, 
The Gentile fiercer than the Jew, — 

Like men immured in living graves 

You breathe and breed! Ah, not for you 

The gorgeous canvas of the morn, 

The sprinkled gayety of grass, 
The sunlight dripping from the corn, 

The stars that hold high-vestured mass, 

The shattered grandeur of the hills, 

The little leaping lovely ways 
Of children, or what beauty spills 

In summer greens and autumn grays. 

These are not gained by any toil 

Of groping hands that plead and plod, 



134 The Lyric Year 

But are the unimpoverished spoil 

Poured from the bursting stores of God. 

How often when the spring is near 
Has one of you forgot his cares, 

And gone, the Bridegroom of the year, 
Filling with song the streets and stairs? 

How often does the wild-bloom smell 
Over the mountained city reach 

To hold the tawny boys in spell 

Or wake the aching girls to speech? 

The clouds that drift across the sea 
And drift across the jagged line 

Of mist-enshrouded masonry — 

Hast thou forgotten these are thine? 

That drift across the jagged line 

Which you, my people, reared and built 

To be a temple and a shrine 
For gods of iron and of gilt — 

Aye, these are thine to heal thy heart, 
To give thee back the thrill of Youth, 

To seek therein the gold of Art, 

And seek the broken shapes of Truth. 



The Lyric Year 135 

O vaulting walls that drive the wind 

To feats of such fantastic fun, 
You make men dull, you make men blind, 

You mar the ritual of the sun; 

The dramas of the dawn you mar, 
The streaming tapestries of dusk— 

For fruit of life the visions are 

And things are but the fibred husk . . . 

Lo, these who all unthinking strive 
To ports they do not dimly guess — 

Can any arts among them thrive? 
Can they be bred to loveliness? 

By strange design and veiled pretext 
God's will upon the race is told, 

For one year does not know the next, 
And, youthful still, the world grows old — 

And these who live from hour to hour 

Know little of the mysteries 
Nor stand aghast before a flower 

Nor worship under wistful trees. 

Yet maybe now there passes here 
In reverential dream a boy, 



136 The Lyric Year 

Whose voice shall rise another year 

And rouse the sleeping lords of joy . . . 

Beat on then, O ye human seas, 

Beat on to destiny or doom: 
The world shall hear your harmonies 

And follow in your widening flume; 

Beat on, ye thousand thousand feet, 
Beat on through unreturning ways; 

Not mine to say whereto ye beat, 
Not mine to scorn you or to praise; 

The world has seen your shining bands 
Thrown westward, binding sea to sea, 

And heard your champing hammers drum 
The music of your deity; 

The world has seen your miracles 

Of steel and steam and straining mass; 
And yet shall see your fingers mould 

A finer plaything ere you pass. 
* 
You, having brothers in all lands, 

Shall teach to all lands brotherhood; 
The harlot, toiling with her hands, 

Shall lead the godly and the good. 



The Lyric Year 137 

And on some far-off silent day 

A thinker gazing on a hill 
Shall cast his staff and horn away 

And answer to your clamoring will. 

He shall bring back the faded bays, 

The Muses to their ancient rule, 
The temples to the market-place, 

The genius nearer to the fool. 



138 The Lyric Year 



THE WHITE CITY 

THOMAS S. JONES, JR. 

~\/TAY it not be that we at last shall win 
1? A That Place long sought, whose towers 
we both have seen? 
Can we forget, who oft so near have been 
That ever Music sounds above life's din! 
For now there beats a melody within 

Each moment, and white visions intervene, 
Where Earth's dull clouds unfurl their misty 
screen 
And where our paths are dark and choked with 
sin. 

It lies so near, that, often in the dawn 

Or when the stars first show their silver fire, 
We seem on old lost ways we once have 
trod: 
Upon the grass a Light no more withdrawn, 
Upon the wind a Song time cannot tire, 
And in our hearts the very Voice of God. 



The Lyric Year 139 



I SING THE BATTLE 



HARRY KEMP 

[" SING the song of the great clean guns that 
A belch forth death at will. 
Ah, but the wailing mothers, the lifeless forms 
and still! 



I sing the song of the billowing flags, the bugles 

that cry before. 
Ah, but the skeletons flapping rags, the lips 

that speak no more! 

I sing the clash of bayonets, of sabres that 

flash and cleave. 
And wilt thou sing the maimed ones, too, that 

go with pinned-up sleeve? 

I sing acclaimed generals that bring the victory 
home. 

Ah, but the broken bodies that drip like honey- 
comb ! 



140 The Lyric Year 

I sing of hosts triumphant, long ranks of march- 
ing men. 

And wilt thou sing the shadowy hosts that 
never march again? 



The Lyric Year 141 



MARTIN 

JOYCE KILMER 

TXT'HEN I am tired of earnest men, 
v * Intense and keen and sharp and clever, 
Pursuing fame with brush or pen 

Or counting metal disks forever, 
Then from the halls of shadowland 

Beyond the trackless purple sea 
Old Martin's ghost comes back to stand 
Beside my desk and talk to me. 

Still on his delicate pale face 

A quizzical thin smile is showing, 
His cheeks are wrinkled like fine lace, 

His kind blue eyes are gray and glowing. 
He wears a brilliant-hued cravat, 

A suit to match his soft gray hair, 
A rakish stick, a knowing hat, 

A manner blithe and debonair. 

How good, that he who always knew 
That being lovely was a duty, 

Should have gold halls to wander through 
And should himself inhabit beauty. 



142 The Lyric Year 

How like his old unselfish way 

To leave those halls of splendid mirth 

And comfort those condemned to stay 
Upon the bleak and sombre earth. 

Some people ask: What cruel chance 

Made Martin's life so sad a story? 
Martin? Why, he exhaled romance 

And wore an overcoat of glory. 
A fleck of sunlight in the street, 

A horse, a book, a girl who smiled, 
Such visions made each moment sweet 

For this receptive, ancient child. 

Because it was old Martin's lot 

To be, not make, a decoration, 
Shall we then scorn him, having not 

His genius of appreciation? 
Rich joy and love he got and gave; 

His heart was merry as his dress. 
Pile laurel wreaths upon his grave 

Who did not gain, but was, success. 



The Lyric Year 143 



THE TIRED 

FLORENCE KIPER 

OUIET dead, whom others weep, 
We have envy of thy sleep. 
Dead in us is being's zest; 
Easy would it be to rest. 
Stooped so low are we by toil, 
We are near the friendly soil. 
Quiet dead, do seeds of spring 
Ever stir thy slumbering? 
Does the push of life anew 
Wake in thee its yearnings too? 
We would lie too deep and still 
E'en to know the sentient thrill. 
We would lie too still and deep 
E'er to waken from our sleep. 
Surely in the depths of earth 
There is resting from rebirth. 
Surely somewhere there is peace, 
Where the tides of being cease. 
Many have with life been blest. 
Lord, Thy weary ask Thee rest. 



144 The Lyric Year 

MIRIAM 

HERMAN E. KITTREDGE 

TN a valley grim and lonely, where all sight 
■* and sound tell only 

Of the kingly castled grandeur of a long- 
forgotten day — 
O'er the toppling turrets hoary, where none 
lives to tell the story 
Of ill-fated love and glory — dreamily the 
moonlight lay. 

On the weed-grown walks I wandered — by the 
unfed fountains pondered 
As to what fair face, there glassed of yore, 
had with the lilies vied — 
Wandered through the ivied arches — mused 
beneath o'er-spreading larches 
Where no sunbeam ever parches — mused, 
and in the silence, sighed. 

Soon a weird reverberation filled my soul with 
consternation, 
Welling from the crumbling casements of a 
solitary tower,— 



The Lyric Year 145 

Melancholy sound evoking in a rusty, muffled 
croaking, — 
Drear monotony provoking, — as it told the 
midnight hour. 

Scarcely had its iteration, adding awe to desola- 
tion, 
Through deserted halls and secret ways 
labyrinthine echoed round, 
When an object most amazing fixed my eyes 
in changeless gazing 
As, its glowing form emblazing, it arose 
from out the ground, — 

Iridescent hues assembling, — all its gaudy plu- 
mage trembling 
In the mellow silver moonlight, as, me- 
thought, in days of yore 
When the golden sun was shining, — its fair 
mistress disinclining 
To indulge in vain divining of the omen that 
it bore. 

Through the silent park parading, — never once 
my sight evading, — 
Toward the tower late resounding, proudly 
moved the stately bird 



146 The Lyric Year 

In its royal vesture gleaming, while I followed 
as in dreaming, — 
Questioning my senses' seeming, — though I 
uttered not a word. 

Suddenly a sound was shattered into myriad 
beats that clattered 
In the distant flinty roadway, dimly mersed 
in mystic light. 
Was it youth, or sturdy yeomen? — brigand 
brave, or friend, or foemen? — 
Then the bird of evil omen vanished from 
my startled sight. 

At its magic disappearing, tremblingly I won- 
dered, fearing 
That my senses had betrayed me — that no 
clock had struck the hour — 
That the peacock's plumage gleaming was a 
wild, fantastic seeming — 
Was the merest lunar dreaming — then a 
light flashed in the tower — 

Flashed and flashed, and kept repeating, as 
though it would flash a greeting 
To each footfall, faster beating, on the near- 
ing rocky road, 



The Lyric Year 147 

Where a horseman large and larger looming 
on a foamy charger, — 
Looming large and looming larger, — waved 
his sword, in answering code. 

Halting, cautiously dismounting, as though to 
himself recounting, 
Step by step, some plot clandestine centered 
in the lonely tower, — 
Helmet, sword, and armor gleaming in the 
moonlight o'er him streaming, — 
Near his charger stood he, seeming paragon 
of knighthood's flower. 

While I gazed in admiration — now too numb 
with consternation 
To deny or further question my own senses 
in the least — 
Sable-robed for saying masses, there uprose 
among the grasses, 
Rustling as when light wind passes, a wan- 
visaged, ghastly priest. 

Leering at the knightly horseman as at hated 
vandal Norseman 
Bent on pagan purpose impious the holies to 
despoil, 



148 The Lyric Year 

Stealthily he turned and, sneaking, as though 
set on vengeance wreaking, 
Made his way where steps uncreaking up a 
lofty turret toil. 

Scarcely had the shadows blended where his 

skulking form ascended 
When there glided forth a vision, from an 

ivy-mantled door 
In the tower late resounding, of such loveliness 

astounding — 
Of such loveliness dumfounding — as no man 

had seen before. 

Past the waking fountains, falling, where the 
snowlike lilies, lolling, 
Seemed as though on Heaven calling its own 
purity to note, 
Straight she came, with graceful tripping, 
through the shadowy moonlight slip- 
ping, — 
All my senses, bee-like, sipping, — to the 
drawbridge o'er the moat. 

On its pivot newly turning, — tremulous, as 
with the yearning 
Of the hearts in anguish burning on each 
foe-defying bank, — 



The Lyric Year 149 

Ere its seeming age-long hinging brought its 
ends to safe impinging, 
Beauty was in terror cringing, and the soul 
within me sank. 

Forth, as girt for battle, rushing, came her 
lord, with anger flushing, 
In response to timely warning, from the dis- 
tant turret's gloom, 
And with sword and imprecation, — listening to 
no oblation 
Of eternal consecration, — forced her to a 
watery tomb. 

Forward sprang the knightly lover, as the 
drawbridge clanged above her, 
O'er the sable shrouded water of the deep- 
ingulfing moat; 
And his dangling scabbard's crashing kept in 
time with every clashing 
Of the blades like lightning flashing round 
about his gleaming coat. 

Suddenly a loud lamenting, as of some lost soul 
repenting, 
Rose from where a priestly figure, bartering 
malice for despair, 



150 The Lyric Year 

Heeded not the clashing duel, heeded not the 

gashing cruel, — 
Recking not a ruby jewel, sparkling on the 

silver air. 

Frantic, — sobbing, — wildly wailing, — of the 
saints in vain availing, — ■ 
Wringing hands and hair disheveled, — paced 
he madly to and fro, 
Gazing at the frowning tower that had served 
as Beauty's bower 
Till it sounded with the hour — then upon 
her tomb below. 

Paused he now, on mania verging, with his 
wavering shadow merging 
Where his soul, in desperation, on some ob- 
ject seemed to dote. 
Then a sound of water splashing met and min- 
gled with the clashing 
Of the angry swords, still flashing, as he 
plunged into the moat. 

Thrust on thrust — successful parry; each the 
other seemed to harry — 
Long the issue seemed to tarry, till the san- 
guine cavalier, 



The Lyric Year 151 

Tiger-like, his foeman rushing, set a crimson 
fountain gushing 
That, to pallid silence hushing, changed the 
drawbridge to a bier. 

Then, methought his purpose pondered. Then, 
methought, his footsteps wandered 
Toward me, as I froze with horror, brook- 
ing not a breathing sound. 
Then — O direfulness appalling! — bare made 
he his breast, and, falling, 
Sank upon his sword-point, — calling Miriam! 
— to the gory ground. 

Miriam, I echoing uttered; and an iterant mur- 
mur muttered 
Miriam — then something fluttered, and I 
quickly turned around, 
When a peacock, plumage trembling, — gaudy 
ocelli resembling 
Myriad evil eyes dissembling, — rose again 
from out the ground. 

With its tail erect and quivering, crept it 
toward me — caused a shivering — 
Like a many-headed cobra gloating in its 
luring spell. 



152 The Lyric Year 

And I took to backward pacing, as the fowl, 

my fear embracing, — 
Never once an inch retracing, — forced me 

where the foeman fell; — 

Forced me, till, with many a tumble, I could 
hear the drawbridge rumble — 
Till, methought, I heard a grumble from a 
gruesome, upturned face. 
Then, the shame within me burning, I, in 
pride, the peacock spurning, 
Pondered, that, some way discerning, I might 
flee the frightful place. 

Long I mused, my courage tussling with the 
rasping and the rustling 
Of the fowl, triumphant, — bustling, menac- 
ing, — athwart my way, 
When a plan of liberation reached a sudden 
consummation 
With the raucous intonation of the knightly 
charger's neigh. 

At that sound the peacock vanished, and I 
sprang as one who, banished 
To the realms of haunting Horror, spies a 
means of quick escape — 



The Lyric Year 153 

Sprang to where the charger waited for his 
master long belated, — 
Champing, stamping, irritated, — lashing tail 
and arching nape. 

Straightway to the saddle leaping, raised I rein, 
when, circling, sweeping, 
Made he for the shadowy vista of the road- 
way whence he came, — 
O'er the clattering stones careering, as though 
his new burden fearing — 
Then his sides, my limp limbs nearing, sent 
a freezing through my frame. 

Onward, in a course unveering, — hedges, boul- 
ders, brooklets clearing, — 
(Moon-dim cliffs and caverns leering), — 
clung I to that icy horse — 
Over moor and meadow miry — crags where 
eagles have their eyrie — 
Like a wanton, wild Valkyrie in some legend 
of the Norse. 

Onward, till the dark grew dimmer; onward, 
till, methought, a shimmer 
Grew into a pallid glimmer where the day is 
wont to break. 



154 The Lyric Year 

Was I mad? or was I dreaming? — then a lone 
star o'er me beaming, 
And the landscape by me streaming, told 
that I was sane, awake. 

Onward, in a valley narrow, till it froze my 
very marrow; 
Onward — then a golden arrow from the 
quiver of the dawn: 
And I felt the saddle sinking till I stood, be- 
wildered, blinking, 
On the ground, my senses linking, and my 
ghostly mount was gone. 



The Lyric Year 155 



THE UNKNOWN BROTHERS 

{After reading the Greek Anthology) 
LOUIS V. LEDOUX 

QINGING band by song united 
^ When the blue iEgean plains 
Girdled isles where lovers lighted 

Lamps in Kypris' seaward fanes; 
Singing Brothers, earth enfolden, 
What of you and of your olden 

Music now? What still remains? 

Scattered blooms surviving only 
As the petal holds the rose, 

In the garden where the lonely 
Scarlet flower of Sappho blows; 

And of some no single token — 

Leaf or bud, or blossom broken, 
Now the mounded garden shows. 

Was there lack of exaltation 
In the burden of your song? 



156 The Lyric Year 

Did you fail in consecration? 

Proved the path of Beauty long? 
Did you pause for pleasant resting? 
Swerve or falter in your questing? 

Have the ages done you wrong? 

Some there may have been who faltered 
By the bright iEgean foam. 

Seeing life with vision altered 
As the soul forgot its home; 

Some, it may be, in confusion 

After Youth's divine illusion, 
Turned to till the kindly loam. 

Some there are in all the ages 

Lonely vigil fail to keep; 
Some allured by wisdom's pages 

Chart the sky and sound the deep; 
Some give up the long foregoing — 
Human touches, reaping, sowing; 

Some with Sappho take the leap. 

But the most wait unrepining, 
Hopeful when all hope is fled, 

For fulfilment of the shining 
Dawn that lingers far ahead; 



The Lyric Year 157 

And by paths of no returning, 
Where the hearth-fires are not burning, 
March companioned by the dead. 

Through neglect or loud derision, 
Mocked at by the worldly-wise, 

Bearing burdens of misprision, 
Seeking truth and finding lies, 

Follow they the glow or glimmer 

Of the vision growing dimmer 
As the death-mist fills their eyes. 

Never can you be requited, 

Unknown Brothers, staunch and brave; 
You the bitter gods have slighted, 

Only half their gift they gave, — 
Gave the patience of endeavor, 
Kept fruition back forever, 

Felled the cypress by your grave. 

You are passed; but unknown Brothers, 

Finding faith of small avail, 
Follow now as followed others, 

And I pause to bid them hail: 
Brothers are they in believing, 
Some it may be are achieving, 

But they triumph though they fail. 



158 The Lyric Year 



TO ROBERT BROWNING 

AGNES LEE 

TTE who leaves a glimmer of his soul 
A A In a bit of marble, in a song, 
He shall win the unseen aureole 

Set above the stars the ages long, 
And the fleeting import of his days 
Echoes of eternity shall praise. 

We of earth thy mastery would hail, 
Iron hand that shook the gates of art, 

Crumpled rock to ridge's flowering trail, 
Yours, O feet, that, following no chart, 

Forged a future, or in spaces free 

Walked the winding floor of some old sea. 

Poet of life's ordinances deep — 
Cities lying restless in the night, 

Tossing, turning ere they fall asleep — 

Meadow-streams in peace of pale moonlight, 

We, the tossing city, we, the stream, 

Share thy noble heritage of dream! 



The Lyric Year 159 

Ah! There is a name within thy name 
Known to love and lyric everywhere, 

Lettered on the heart in strokes of flame, 
Hers who wrought in love's encloistered air 

Gathering the guerdon of her hours, 

Holding up to thee and heaven her flowers. 

Call we unto her, thou art in sight, 
Call we unto thee, she glides to us. 

And before the garden of delight 
Where forever song is tremulous 

Two beloved forms Time radiates, 

Passing in together through the gates. 



160 The Lyric Year 



SHADOW 

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE 

\X7"HEN leaf and flower are newly made, 
* * And bird and butterfly and bee 
Are at their summer posts again; 
When all is ready, lo ! 'tis she, 
Suddenly there after soft rain — 
The deep-lashed dryad of the shade. 

Shadow! the fairest gift of June, 

Gone like the rose the winter through, 

Save in the ribbed anatomy 
Of ebon line the moonlight drew, 
Stark on the snow, of tower or tree, 
Like letters of a dead man's rune. 

Dew-breathing shade, all summer lies 
In the cool hollow of thy breast, 

Thou moth-winged creature darkly fair; 
The very sun steals down to rest 
Within thy swaying tendrilled hair, 
And forest-flicker of thine eyes. 



The Lyric Year 161 

Made of all shapes that flit and sway, 
And mass, and scatter in the breeze, 

And meet and part, open and close; 
Thou sister of the clouds and trees, 
Thou daintier phantom of the rose, 
Thou nun of the hot and honeyed day. 

Misdeemed art thou of those who hold 
Darkness thy soul, thy dwelling-place 

Night and its stars; nay! all of light 
Wert thou begot, all flowers thy face, 
And, hushed in thee, all colors bright 
Hide from the noon their blue and gold. 

Thy voice the song of hidden rills, 
The sigh deep-bosomed silence heaves 

From the full heart of happy things, — 
The lap of water-lily leaves, 

The noiseless language of the wings 
Of evening making strange the hills. 



1 62 The Lyric Year 



SATURNALIA 

LUDWIG LEWISOHN 



*11[7"ITH whirl of skirt and scent of hair 
T * And click of heels and castanets 
She dances in the fevered air, 
She dances on the edge of doom, 
She dances in the velvet gloom 
Of slender, gold-tipped cigarettes; 
She dances and I cannot bear 
The fragrance of her flowing hair. 

Her bosom is a morbid white 
Under the sharp electric light 
Where pallid, eager figures sit 
Fawning on her with satyr eyes; 
But she is cold and exquisite, 
And her glance empty of replies. 

She dances, dances, nothing stirs 
Save fluttering hands and fervid feet, 
For rigid is that smile of hers, 



The Lyric Year 163 

That luring laughter of the street. 
She hurls aside her castanets 
And beats upon a tambourine, 
And flashes o'er the painted scene; 
Across the smoke of cigarettes 
Floats to me through the fevered air 
The savor of her dewy hair. 

Her magic throttles me, and dims 
My vision unto aught but her: 
Far, faint the calling noises whir: 
The pallor of her fragile limbs 
Must cool my burning side; the scent 
Of her warm raiment must be near. 
I have no hope, I have no fear, 
My brain, my will, my soul are spent. 
Drive forth the crowd! Darken the light! 
She must be mine . . . mine . . . mine . . . 
to-night . . . 

II 

The pale dawn hurries up the street, 

The gaunt, black houses turn to gray; 

Rumbling on jagged stones a dray 

Makes my nerves tremble and my heart beat. 

The bars are open : ragged, queer, 

Desolate children run to fetch 



164 The Lyric Year 

Their father's morning quart of beer; 
Yonder a sodden, sullen wretch 
Makes mouths at me as though I were 
His boon-companion of the street; 
The sharp chill of the morning air 
Tingles in chest and hands and feet. 

Ill 

I wander — and the sordid scene, 
Forecourt of writhing forms of hell, 
Bestial, superb, abominable, 
Fades — and I come where wide, serene, 
Lustrous with the triumphing sun 
The river flows athwart the sky — 
Pearl, amber and vermilion — 
And earth, instinct with deity, 
Breathes the old rapture of the dawn. 
And suddenly the paths wherein 
My erring soul and sense had gone — 
Glitter of revel, obscene din — 
Obscure the lustral light that fills 
My vision — and I do not dare 
Turn aching eyes unto the bare 
Peaks of the everlasting hills . . . 

Thou fool ! There is no curse but fear. 
Behind the veil of stars and seas, 



The Lyric Year 165 

Silent, magnanimous, austere 
Sit the Eternal Presences, 
Who wrought thee not to alternate 
Between blind lust and blinder shame, 
But who assigned thy mystic fate 
Unto the stars, unto the flame. 
Once more shall beat the tambourine, 
Once more shall click the castanets, 
On the imperishable scene 
Beyond the glow of cigarettes, 
The Dancer of an endless day 
Once more shall dance thy soul away. 

And from this ardor of the sense, 
Even from the Dancer's painted mien, 
Thy soul must wring a recompense 
Inviolable and serene. 
Stung by the blight of passionate scars, 
Tried in the earth-born flame of thee, 
Thou shalt at last hear resonantly 
The Jubilate of the stars. 
Deep in thee the immortal fire, 
Unborrowed or of ape or clod, 
Must magically change desire 
Into the yearnings that aspire 
Nearer the Singing Spheres of God. 



1 66 The Lyric Year 



O. HENRY 

NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY 

"He could not forget that he was a Sidney/* 

l*S this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown, 
A The darling of the glad and gaping town? 

This is that dubious hero of the press 
Whose slangy tongue and insolent address 
Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon 
The man with yellow journals round him 

strewn. 
We laughed and dozed, then roused and read 

again 
And vowed O. Henry funniest of men. 
He always worked a triple-hinged surprise 
To end the scene and make one rub his eyes. 

He comes with vaudeville, with stare and leer. 
He comes with megaphone and specious cheer. 
His troupe, too fat or short or long or lean, 
Step from the pages of the magazine 



The Lyric Year 167 

With slapstick or sombrero or with cane, 
The rube, the cowboy or the masher vain. 
They overact each part. But at the height 
Of revel and absurdity's delight 
The masks fall off for one queer instant there 
And show real faces: faces full of care 
And desperate longing; love that's hot or cold; 
And subtle thoughts, and countenances bold. 
The masks go back. 'Tis one joke more. 

Laugh on! 
The goodly grown-up company is gone. 

No doubt, had he occasion to address 

The brilliant court of purple-clad Queen Bess, 

He would have wrought for them the best he 

knew 
And led more loftily his actor-crew. 
How coolly he misquoted. 'Twas his art: 
Slave-scholar, who misquoted — from the heart ! 
So when he slapped his back with friendly roar 
^Esop awaited him, without the door, — 
-ZEsop the Greek, who made dull masters laugh 
With little tales of fox and dog and calf. 

And, be it said, 'mid these his pranks so odd, 
With something nigh to chivalry he trod, 
And oft the drear and driven would defend — 
The little shop-girl's knight, unto the end. 



1 68 The Lyric Year 

Yea, he had passed, ere we could understand 
The blade of Sidney glimmered in his hand. 
Yea, ere we knew, Sir Philip's sword was drawn 
With valiant cut and thrust, and he was gone. 



The Lyric Year 169 



THE TEMPEST 

G. CONSTANT LOUNSBERY 

HPHROUGH the hours caressed of the sun 

and shadow 
Sleeps the summer day in her deep-leaved 

bowers, 
With a lilt of leaves and low laughing waters 
Drowsed in the sunlight. 

On outspreading wings from the haunts of 

Heaven, 
Down the mountains, down the astonished 

valley, 
Undenied, and rending the rocks asunder 
Plunges the tempest. 

Ah, the quivering lightning that stabs the dark- 
ness, 

Ah, the awakened voice of triumphant 
thunder : 

All the earth is shaken, the waters tremble, 
Fearing the fury. 



170 The Lyric Year 

So with the face of flame and with locks un- 
loosened. 
With a rush of wings and disastrous laughter 
Love has caught me sleeping, and storms me 
onward 

Faster and faster. 
* * * 

In the untroubled calm of the tender twilight 
Sleeps the Earth; but ah, all my soul within me 
Cries to thee: O sweet, draw thou near, be- 
friend me — 

Heed me and hear me. 

Nay, thou shalt not leave me alone, and lonely, 
Nay, I will not loose thee except thou love me, 
Lean thy face and lift thou my lips, and kiss 
me — 

Ah ! Aphrodite ! 



The Lyric Year 171 



HILL-TOP 

ARVIA MACKAYE 

/^LIMBING through a hole in the fence, 
^-^ Skipping through twisted steeple-bush, 
Away, away I wander hence, 

Up brambly slopes my path to push 

Soon where I come to a little stream 

Foam is falling fair as snow; 
It glistens down a sunny beam 

To where — to where I do not know. 

To the mossy hill-top then I run, 

Where the fairies' golden goblets lie, 

And bask in the dreamy, setting sun, 
Till, with a twinkle, he says Good-bye : 

And there I lie and play and sing, 

And sit in the soft moss, cool and green, 

And watch the pink clouds make a ring 
In the glow of the sleeping face unseen. 



172 The Lyric Year 



THE SIBYL 

PERCY MACKAYE 

[To Edward Gordon Craig: "On the Art of 
the Theatre"] 

/^LOUDY, vast, the caverned stage 

^-^ Glows with twilight. — Where are they: 

Ribald love, and conscious rage, 

Joyless banter, captious quibble, 

Brass and bauble of Broadway? 

What are such to her — the Sibyl, 

Where she dreams beside her solemn 

Single column 

In the quiet ? — 

Bats in swoon, 

Gnats in riot, 

Midgets swarming 'gainst the moon: 

Such are they 

Beneath the grace 

And the rapture of her face. 



The Lyric Year 173 

She will waken. Long she's slumbered 

Through the noisy years unnumbered, 

Since her radiant limbs withdrew— 

Swift, adept, 

Divinely calm — 

From the leering satyrs' view 

To the visioned silences 

Where she slept, 

Pillowed in her bended arm 

On the starred Acropolis. 

She has wakened! She has smiled 

With a tender, large delight 

At the spell-charms of her child, 

Her own spirit's acolyte. 

At his wand-touch she has risen 

In the mind of man — her prison 

And her temple. Lo, she moves! 

Sensuous, with form of fable, 

Most divinely reasonable, 

Not the comets through the ether, 

Not the planets in their grooves 

Tread a more harmonious measure 

Than she paces, in her pleasure, 

On the silences beneath her. 

For the silences are thrumming 
As with heart-beats at her coming, 



174 The Lyric Year 

And the Passions pause aghast 
At the glorious decision 
Of her movements, as they mark 
Wild vivaces of her vision, 
Deep andantes of her dark; 
And her gestures — as she lifts 
Pillared vistas of the past, 
Spacious visions of the marches 
Of to-morrow, gracious arches 
Through whose rifts 
Beauty beckons, — hold no mirror 
To the error 

And the grossness of the age, 
Mimic not 

Whims and gropings of emotion, 
Atrophies and tricks of thought, 
But her rapture is the rage 
Of man's spirit in its fullness, 
Purged of accident and dullness; 
And her music, born of motion, 
Recreates the spirit's trance, 
Weaving symphonies of sunlight, 
Waking chorals from the wan light 
Of the Pleiads in their dance. 

Through her cloudy, caverned stage 
Bursts the morning: and she stands 



The Lyric Year 175 

In the quiet, by her solemn 

Shining column, 

Gazing forth serenely glad 

On the roaring, dazzled lands 

Where the little children, clad 

In the garments of her spirit, 

On enchanted feet come streaming, 

For she knows they shall inherit 

All the ages of her dreaming. 

Then the sated ones and blinded, 
And the timid, callous minded, 
Clutch the children's sleeves, and stare, 
Crying: "What behold you there? 
There is nothing I" — But the lover, 
And the young of soul, his friend, 
And the artist, follow after 
The children in their laughter, 
And the daring half discover, 
And the happy comprehend. 



176 The Lyric Year 



MEDITATION OVER A SKULL 

CHARLES H. MACKINTOSH 

TN this strange Cup of ivory, love-wrought, 
A Once brimmed the gray and golden Wine of 

Thought. 
Cast it aside! The World has drained the 

Wine: 
And lo, New Grapes are ripening on the Vine ! 

Press me New Grapes, and twine about my 

brow 
The leaves of all the Pasts that make the Now : 
This very Vine that yields Itself anew 
Roots in the myriad mould of such as You. 

When the Last Drop drips from my empty 

Cup, 
And when the thirsty Vine has drawn it up, 
Shall I begrudge the heritage of Then, 
And bid New Grapes brim my Old Cup again? 



The Lyric Year 177 

Or shall I hope that some discerning Guest 
Will think my Cup more precious than the rest, 
Bear It away, and set It on some shelf 
Because It held the Wine that was Myself? 

Press me New Grapes ; sufficient to my Task 
That I may offer Drink to all who ask; 
I shall not need refilling, nor a Shrine, 
For I shall live in Them that drink my Wine ! 



178 The Lyric Year 



ANNE HATHAWAY ALONE AT AVON 

CATHERINE MARKHAM 

npO put away love in the grave's safe keeping, 

Leaving a handful of roses there; 
To know that 'tis only death that is heaping 

The silence between two hearts that care — 
For this indeed may a woman go weeping, 

And yet have a joy to wear. 

But O for the grave to invade the living — - 
To see love die in the eyes love wore ; 

To know, whatever the asking or giving, 
The love that tarried will speak no more; 

Lost like the snows in the wild sea's sieving 
Is the love that goes this door. 

Whatever the measure of earth's bereaving, 
Whatever the burden of life's arrears, 

O the last-wrung drop of the utmost grieving, 
The salt leached out of our human tears 

Is hers who watches love's careless leaving, 
And faces the loveless years. 



The Lyric Year 179 

THE TESTING 

EDWIN MARKHAM 

TX7*HEN, in the dim beginning of the years, 
■ ™ God mixed in man the raptures and the 
tears 
And scattered thro' his brain the starry stuff, 
He said, "Behold! Yet this is not enough, 
For I must test his spirit to make sure 
That he can dare the Vision and endure. 

"I will withdraw my Face, 

Veil me in shadow for a certain space, 

And leave behind only a broken clue, 

A crevice where the glory glimmers thro', 

Some whisper from the sky, 

Some footprint in the road to track Me by. 

"I will leave man to make the fateful guess, 
Will leave him torn between the No and Yes, 
Leave him unresting till he rests in Me, 
Drawn upward by that choice that makes him 

free — 
Leave him in tragic loneliness to choose, 
With all in life to win or all to lose." 



180 The Lyric Year 



RENASCENCE 

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY 

A LL I could see from where I stood 

Was three long mountains and a wood; 
I turned and looked another way, 
And saw three islands in a bay. 
So with my eyes I traced the line 
Of the horizon, thin and fine. 
Straight around till I was come 
Back to where I'd started from; 
And all I saw from where I stood 
Was three long mountains and a wood. 
Over these things I could not see; 
These were the things that bounded me; 
And I could touch them with my hand, 
Almost, I thought, from where I stand. 
And all at once things seemed so small 
My breath came short, and scarce at all. 
But, sure, the sky is big, I said; 
Miles and miles above my head; 
So here upon my back I'll lie 
And look my fill into the sky. 



The Lyric Year 181 

And so I looked, and, after all, 
The sky was not so very tall. 
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop, 
And — sure enough ! — I see the top ! 
The sky, I thought, is not so grand; 
I 'most could touch it with my hand! 
And, reaching up my hand to try, 
I screamed to feel it touch the sky. 

I screamed, and — lo ! — Infinity 

Came down and settled over me; 

Forced back my scream into my chest, 

Bent back my arm upon my breast, 

And, pressing of the Undefined 

The definition on my mind, 

Held up before my eyes a glass 

Through which my shrinking sight did pass 

Until it seemed I must behold 

Immensity made manifold; 

Whispered to me a word whose sound 

Deafened the air for worlds around, 

And brought unmuffled to my ears 

The gossiping of friendly spheres, 

The creaking of the tented sky, 

The ticking of Eternity. 

I saw and heard, and knew at last 

The How and Why of all things, past, 



1 82 The Lyric Year 

And present, and forevermore. 

The universe, cleft to the core, 

Lay open to my probing sense 

That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence 

But could not, — nay! But needs must suck 

At the great wound, and could not pluck 

My lips away till I had drawn 

All venom out* — Ah, fearful pawn! 

For my omniscience paid I toll 

In infinite remorse of soul. 

All sin was of my sinning, all 

Atoning mine, and mine the gall 

Of all regret. Mine was the weight 

Of every brooded wrong, the hate 

That stood behind each envious thrust, 

Mine every greed, mine every lust. 

And all the while for every grief, 

Each suffering, I craved relief 

With individual desire, — 

Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire 

About a thousand people crawl; 

Perished with each, — then mourned for all! 

A man was starving in Capri ; 

He moved his eyes and looked at me; 

I felt his gaze, I heard his moan, 

And knew his hunger as my own. 



The Lyric Year 183 

I saw at sea a great fog-bank 
Between two ships that struck and sank; 
A thousand screams the heavens smote; 
And every scream tore through my throat. 
No hurt I did not feel, no death 
That was not mine ; mine each last breath 
That, crying, met an answering cry 
From the compassion that was I. 
All suffering mine, and mine its rod; 
Mine, pity like the pity of God. 
Ah, awful weight! Infinity 
Pressed down upon the finite Me ! 
My anguished spirit, like a bird, 
Beating against my lips I heard; 
Yet lay the weight so close about 
There was no room for it without. 
And so beneath the Weight lay I 
And suffered death, but could not die. 

Long had I lain thus, craving death, 
When quietly the earth beneath 
Gave way, and inch by inch, so great 
At last had grown the crushing weight, 
Into the earth I sank till I 
Full six feet under ground did lie, 
And sank no more, — there is no weight 
Can follow here, however great. 



1 84 The Lyric Year 

From off my breast I felt it roll, 
And as it went my tortured soul 
Burst forth and fled in such a gust 
That all about me swirled the dust. 



Deep in the earth I rested now; 

Cool is its hand upon the brow 

And soft its breast beneath the head 

Of one who is so gladly dead. 

And all at once, and over all 

The pitying rain began to fall; 

I lay and heard each pattering hoof 

Upon my lowly, thatched roof, 

And seemed to love the sound far more 

Than ever I had done before. 

For rain it hath a friendly sound 

To one who's six feet underground; 

And scarce the friendly voice or face: 

A grave is such a quiet place. 

The rain, I said, is kind to come 
And speak to me in my new home. 
I would I were alive again 
To kiss the fingers of the rain, 
To drink into my eyes the shine 
Of every slanting silver line, 



The Lyric Year 185 

To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze 
From drenched and dripping apple-trees. 
For soon the shower will be done, 
And then the broad face of the sun 
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth 
Until the world with answering mirth 
Shakes joyously, and each round drop 
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top. 
How can I bear it; buried here, 
While overhead the sky grows clear 
And blue again after the storm? 
O, multi-colored, multiform, 
Beloved beauty over me, 
That I shall never, never see 
Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold, 
That I shall never more behold! 
Sleeping your myriad magics through, 
Close-sepulchred away from you ! 

God, I cried, give me new birth, 
And put me back upon the earth! 
Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd 
And let the heavy rain, down-poured 
In one big torrent, set me free, 
Washing my grave away from me! 

1 ceased; and, through the breathless hush 
That answered me, the far-off rush 



1 86 The Lyric Year 

Of herald wings came whispering 
Like music down the vibrant string 
Of my ascending prayer, and — crash ! 
Before the wild wind's whistling lash 
The startled storm-clouds reared on high 
And plunged in terror down the sky, 
And the big rain in one black wave 
Fell from the sky and struck my grave. 

I know not how such things can be 
I only know there came to me 
A fragrance such as never clings 
To aught save happy living things; 
A sound as of some joyous elf 
Singing sweet songs to please himself, 
And, through and over everything, 
A sense of glad awakening. 
The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear, 
Whispering to me I could hear; 
I felt the rain's cool finger-tips 
Brushed tenderly across my lips, 
Laid gently on my sealed sight, 
And all at once the heavy night 
Fell from my eyes and I could see, — 
A drenched and dripping apple-tree, 
A last long line of silver rain, 
A sky grown clear and blue again. 



The Lyric Year 187 

And as I looked a quickening gust 
Of wind blew up to me and thrust 
Into my face a miracle 
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell, — 
I know not how such things can be ! — 
I breathed my soul back into me. 
Ah ! Up then from the ground sprang I 
And hailed the earth with such a cry 
As is not heard save from a man 
Who has been dead, and lives again. 
About the trees my arms I wound; 
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; 
I raised my quivering arms on high; 
I laughed and laughed into the sky, 
Till at my throat a strangling sob 
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb 
Sent instant tears into my eyes; 

God, I cried, no dark disguise 
Can e'er hereafter hide from me 
Thy radiant identity! 

Thou canst not move across the grass 
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass, 
Nor speak, however silently, 
But my hushed voice will answer Thee. 

1 know the path that tells Thy way 
Through the cool eve of every day; 



1 88 The Lyric Year 

God, I can push the grass apart 
And lay my finger on Thy heart! 

The world stands out on either side 
No wider than the heart is wide; 
Above the world is stretched the sky, — 
No higher than the soul is high. 
The heart can push the sea and land 
Farther away on either hand; 
The soul can split the sky in two, 
And let the face of God shine through. 
But East and West will pinch the heart 
That cannot keep them pushed apart; 
And he whose soul is flat- — the sky 
Will cave in on him by and by. 



The Lyric Year 189 



TO-DAY 

ANGELA MORGAN 

' I A be alive in such an age ! 

With every year a lightning page 
Turned in the world's great wonder book 
Whereon the leaning nations look. 
When men speak strong for brotherhood, 
For peace and universal good, 
When miracles are everywhere 
And every inch of common air 
Throbs a tremendous prophecy 
Of greater marvels yet to be. 

O thrilling age ! 

O willing age ! 
When steel and stone and rail and rod 
Become the avenue of God — 
A trump to shout His thunder through 
To crown the work that man may do. 

To be alive in such an age! 
When man, impatient of his cage, 
Thrills to the soul's immortal rage 



190 The Lyric Year 

For conquest — -reaches goal on goal, 
Travels the earth from pole to pole, 
Garners the tempests and the tides 
And on a Dream Triumphant rides. 
When, hid within a lump of clay, 
A light more terrible than day- 
Proclaims the presence of that Force 
Which hurls the planets on their course. 

O age with wings ! 

O age that flings 
A challenge to the very sky, 
Where endless realms of conquest lie. 
When earth, on tiptoe, strives to hear 
The message of a sister sphere, 
Yearning to reach the cosmic wires 
That flash Infinity's desires. 

To be alive in such an age! 
That thunders forth its discontent 
With futile creed and sacrament, 
Yet craves to utter God's intent, 
Seeing beneath the world's unrest 
Creation's huge, untiring quest, 
And through Tradition's broken crust 
The flame of Truth's triumphant thrust; 
Below the seething thought of man 
The push of a stupendous Plan. 



The Lyric Year 191 

O age of strife! 

O age of life! 
When Progress rides her chariot high, 
And on the borders of the sky 
The signals of the century 
Proclaim the things that are to be . . . 
The rise of woman to her place, 
The coming of a nobler race. 

To be alive in such an age — ■ 

To live to it, 

To give to it! 
Rise, soul, from thy despairing knees. 
What if thy lips have drunk the lees? 
Fling forth thy sorrow to the wind — 
And link thy hope with humankind . . . 
The passion of a larger claim 
Will put thy puny grief to shame. 
Breathe the world thought, do the world deed, 
Think hugely of thy brother's need. 
And what thy woe, and what thy weal? 
Look to the work the times reveal! 
Give thanks with all thy flaming heart — 
Crave but to have in it a part. 
Give thanks and clasp thy heritage — 
To be alive in such an age! 



192 The Lyric Year 



THE BELOVED 

BERTHA NEWBERRY 

T AM made still and strange . . . What is 
A it crieth 

So faint and thin against the trembling rain? 
Hear not, it is a wistful voice that liethf 

A little love that drags a heavy chain! 

What is this glimmer, pale as languid thought, 
That strives to hold the drifting mists apart? 

Be still, my Love; it is the hand that sought 
To keep thee from my safe and loving heart! 

My dreaming hand is tangled in Thy hair, 
For fumes of sleep are perfume of Thy 
breath; 

Thy face, Beloved, seeks me through the air, 
And drowsily I feel Thy arms, O Death. 

Now let Thy stilling kisses find my mouth, 
Whilst Gemini, that twinned sign of my 
birth, 

Fades green along the chambers of the south 
Beyond the solid ramparts of the Earth. 



The Lyric Year 193 



THE WHISPER OF EARTH 

EDWARD J. O'BRIEN 

|"N the misty hollow shyly greening branches 
A Soften to the south wind, bending to the 

rain. 
From the moistened earthland flutter little 
whispers, 
Breathing hidden beauty, innocent of stain. 

Little plucking fingers tremble through the 
silence, 
Little silent voices sigh the dawn of spring, 
Little burning earth-flames break the awful 
stillness, 
Little crying wind-sounds come before the 
King. 

Powers, dominations urge the budding of the 
crocus, 
Cherubim are singing in the moist cool stone, 
Seraphim are calling through the channels of 
the lily, 
God has heard the earth-cry and journeys to 
His throne. 



194 The Lyric Year 



WAVE PASSIONS 

THEODORE EUGENE OERTEL 

TT EAR the surf upon the sands : 

Hear the laughing waves upon the 
golden sands: 
What a merry, merry din, 

As they chase each other in : 
As they leap, leap, leap, 

From the bosom of the deep, everywhere, 
To clasp the slender fingers of the air, — 
Of the flower-scented air, 
Of the smiling maiden air 
As they kiss the trailing tresses of her wonder- 
ful, soft hair; 
While they fashion dainty garlands such as 
Naiads love to wear, 
Made of bubbles with their tints 
Iridescent and pearl glints; 
While resplendent, 
For a pendant 
That will tinkle like a bell, 
Drops a periwinkle shell. 



The Lyric Year 195 

Hear the surf upon the sands: 

Hear the maddened waves upon the shrink- 
ing sands: 
How they gnash their teeth and roar, 

As they rush upon the shore, 
As they dash themselves to foam upon the 
shore. 
How they pound, pound, pound, 
With a doleful, hollow sound: 

How they hammer, hammer, hammer, 
As with wild, unceasing clamor 

They reach upward for the moon, — 
For the cloud-encrusted moon: 
For the scared and pallid moon: 
Drunken devils how they swagger as they stag- 
ger while they yell 
The pestilential message that is yammered down 
in hell, 

Through the confines of the night; 
The melancholy night: 
Through the marches of the lone and weeping 
night. 



Hear the surf upon the sands: 

Hear the sullen waves upon the sodden 
sands. 



196 The Lyric Year 

They are muttering and groaning, 
And their sinfulness condoning, 
As they part the drifting tresses of their dead: 

Of the dumb, accusing dead, 
With their prayerful arms outspread. 
In an attitude appealing, 
And a rigidness revealing 

All the terrors they have known: 
While their bleary eyes are bare, 
In a horror-haunted stare, 
And their pleading lips are frozen in a mute, 
despairing moan. 
While they lave, 
Every wave 
Is fashioning a grave. 
As they boom, boom, boom, 
They are digging at a tomb : 
Are hollowing a damp and sandy tomb. 



Hear the surf upon the sands: 
Hear the sobbing waves upon the sighing 
sands : 

With demeanor penitential, 

And low voices reverential, 
They are smoothing with their hands, 
With their patient, tender hands, 



The Lyric Year 197 

Every burrow that they fashioned 
In their recklessness impassioned: 
With obliterating fingers they are filling little 

graves, 
While in diapason harmonies they murmur 
minor staves : 
And they call, call, call, 
As the chantings rise and fall, 
With a recapitulation 
Of the moaning ululation, 
As the melancholy chantings rise and fall : 
They are sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, 
While the very air is throbbing, 

With their pain : 
And their agony of weeping, 
For the dead within their keeping, 
Is in vain, — 
All in vain. 



198 The Lyric Year 

PITTSBURGH 

JAMES OPPENHEIM 

/^\VER his face his gray hair drifting hides 

^^ his Labor-glory in smoke, 

Strange through his breath the soot is sifting, 

his feet are buried in coal and coke. 
By night hands twisted and lurid in fires, by 

day hands blackened with grime and oil, 
He toils at the foundries and never tires, and 

ever and ever his lot is toil. 

He speeds his soul till his body wrestles with 

terrible tonnage and terrible time, 
Out through the yards and over the trestles the 

flat-cars clank and the engines chime, 
His mills through windows seem eaten with 

fire, his high cranes travel, his ingots roll, 
And billet and wheel and whistle and wire 

shriek with the speeding up of his soul. 

Lanterns with reds and greens a-glisten wave 
the way and the headlight glares, 

The back-bent laborers glance and listen and out 
through the night the tail-light flares — 



The Lyric Year 199 

Deep in the mills like a tipping cradle the huge 

converter turns on its wheel 
And sizzling spills in the ten-ton ladle a golden 

water of molten steel. 

Yet screwed with toil his low face searches 
shadow-edged fires and whited pits, 

Gripping his levers his body lurches, grappling 
his irons he prods and hits, 

And deaf with the roll and clangor and rattle 
with its sharp escaping staccato of steam, 

And blind with flame and worn with battle, in- 
to his tonnage he turns his dream. 

The world he has builded rises around us, our 
wonder-cities and weaving rails, 

Over his wires a marvel has found us, a glory- 
rides in our wheeled mails, 

For the Earth grows small with strong Steel 
woven, and they come together who 
plotted apart — 

But he who has wrought this thing in his oven 
knows only toil and the tired heart. 



200 The Lyric Year 



HE WHOM A DREAM HATH 
POSSESSED 

SHAEMAS O SHEEL 

|1_TE whom a dream hath possessed knoweth 
no more of doubting, 
For mist and the blowing of winds and the 
mouthing of words he scorns; 
Not the sinuous speech of schools he hears, but 
a knightly shouting, 
And never comes darkness down, yet he 
greeteth a million morns. 



He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no 
more of roaming; 
All roads and the flowing of waves and the 
speediest flight he knows, 
But wherever his feet are set, his soul is for- 
ever homing, 
And going, he comes, and coming he heareth 
a call and goes. 



The Lyric Year 201 

He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no 
more of sorrow, 
At death and the dropping of leaves and the 
fading of suns he smiles, 
For a dream remembers no past and scorns the 
desire of a morrow, 
And a dream in a sea of doom sets surely the 
ultimate isles. 

He whom a dream hath possessed treads the 
impalpable marches, 
From the dust of the day's long road he 
leaps to a laughing star, 
And the ruin of worlds that fall he views from 
eternal arches, 
And rides God's battlefield in a flashing and 
golden car. 



202 The Lyric Year 

WOMAN-SONG 

JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY 
I 

^V7"0U that sleep not, Shadow moving at mid- 
A night, 
To and fro, where the windows glimmer and 

darken, 
To and fro, where you with your ailing treas- 
ure 

Lean down to harken: 

You that sleep not, Shadow behind the case- 
ment ! — 

Toilful Shadow, gaunt from the cup of sorrow; 

Humble, ceaseless, shaping late in the mid- 
night 

Bread of To-morrow: 

You, wan Shadow, wasting the light of the 
taper, 

Light of your eyes, at a stitch-by-stitch adorn- 
ing; 

Starven star-light, only to pale as stars do, 
Toward the gray morning: 



The Lyric Year 203 

You that keep your watch by the countless 
windows, 

Waking, working, — there where they gleam 
and darken, 

Even you, that over the wide world's breath- 
ing 

Lean down and harken: 

Dark Immortal !— Shadow of mortal woman, 
Why do you wake, when the sentries sleep, and 

the sages? — 
Towering Shadow, flung on the dark of night- 
time, 

Dark of the ages? 

{Loud from the tower 

Swung the Bell. 

And the sentry called 
. . . 'All's . . wellT 

The candle flared 

Before the night. 

The Shadow trimmed the light.) 

II 

What new pride, Shadow of ceaseless vigil, 
Knocks at your heart? — Or what far folly of 
questing 



204 The Lyric Year 

Stirs you now, between the loom and the 
cradle ? — 

Woman unresting ! 

What vain longing, — circle and cry of sea- 
birds — 

Widens your eyes with the sleepless light be- 
side you ? 

All the besieging years, your toil and your 
burden 

Who hath denied you? 

Who hath said to you, 'Rest; — yea, rest for 
your portion!' 

Who forbade to your eyes their watch or their 
weeping? 

Who withheld the helpless years of the man- 
child 

From your sole keeping? 

Mind of the Moon, — lo, some moon-madness 

is on you! 
Ours the folly, leaving you free to wander, 
Gathering herbs for healing, under the moon- 
light, 

Where you might ponder: 



The Lyric Year 205 

Ways and ways of the Moon; her song and 
her strangeness; 

Spinning, — singing, even as her earth-born 
daughters 

Spin and sing; yet laying her strong command- 
ment 

Over the waters. 

( The echoes died 
Around the hour. 
Back went the doves. 
Back to the tower. 

The house was blind 

With sleep, within 

The Shadow turned, to spin.) 



Ill 



Is it some new thirst of a shining peril? — 
Glorious Death men sing as they go to meet 

him 
Far and far? — But turn thee again to thy 

shelter ! — 

There shalt thou meet him; — 



206 The Lyric Year 

Greet him, speak him fair, — hostess and hand- 
maid! 

Death for a year-long guest, what pride should 
he kindle? 

Face-to-face with thy smiling eyes, — and hold- 
ing 

Flax for thy spindle ! 

Is it for men's red harvest, weariless Woman? 
Spoils of empire? Triumph of shuddering 

wonder? — 
You, who fought with the vultures over your 

treasure, 

Yea, for such plunder! 

You who shore your hair by the walls of Car- 
thage ! — 

Gave your beauteous hair, but to arm the bow- 
men, — 

Smiting white through the long-spent storm of 
arrows, 

Lightnings of omen! 

{One by one, 
The stars went by; 
The Shadow barkened 
For a cry. 



The Lyric Year 207 

The sentry went, 
Whose watch was done. 
. . . The Shadow spun.) 

Not yet spent, — with the night of that endless 

travail? — 
Sons of men, slaying the sons of mothers! — 
Not yet spent? — For all shed life of your 

giving? 

Yours, not another's. 

Who but you, — spun of your breath with your 

beauty? 
Plucked the light of the stars you fought in 

their courses? — 
Light, for the morning-gaze of the torn young 

eye-lids 

Trampled of horses! 

Who but you, — to bear the bloom and the bur- 
den — 

Breath and death, and doom of the world, for 
your share. 

Breath for men, and men that shall die to- 
morrow; — 

Glory of warfare! 



208 The Lyric Year 

Breath for men; yea, bodies for men, — for 

women : 
Women that breathe and bloom, and bring 

forth in sorrow 
Men, and men, to nurture and rear as worship. 
Men, for To-morrow. 

Doom, — doom, deeper than seas can fathom, 
Darker than all the dark of the tides up- 
buoying 
Lordly ships: — that glory of Love should 
kindle 

Life, for destroying! 

( The tide ebbed; 
The tide turned; 
The wind died; 
The taper burned. 

The cock crew 

That night was done. 

The Shadow spun.) 



The Lyric Year 209 



Woman, Woman, now that the lifted voices — 
Lifted never till now, — call thee to slumber; 
Surely mayest thou shut from thy mothering 
eyelids 

Griefs without number! 

Now the covering darkness lifts from the 
house-tops, 

Baring stark those wretched beyond their tell- 
ing, — 

Count not thou their wants and their wounds ! 
- — nay, go not 

Forth of thy dwelling. 

What wilt thou see? — The thousand shames 

and hungers ; 
Old despairs, clinging thy thousand pities ! 
What wilt thou hear? — Save all that must 

faint and famish 

Through all thy cities? 

The morning-stars 

Were laughing all. 

The Shadow heard them call. 



210 The Lyric Year 

The darkness called her by her name. 
The Shadow rose and came. 

There were the early stars astir 

And one and all they laughed at her. 

O sisterwise they sung to her; 

Old songs, old words they flung to her. 

She knew again, — again 

The olden laughter of a star, 

From long ago, and far and far! 

But all their music and their mirth 

Fell as the little words of earth, 

Unto an old refrain'. — 

Silver laughter and golden scorn, 

Across the soothsay of gray morn, 

With the smiting of sweet rain. 



VI 



'Spin, — spin! Thou who wert made for spin- 
ning! 

We are only the stars. Lo, thou art human. 

Thou art the Spinner, — yea from the far be- 
ginning, 

Thou who art Woman. 



The Lyric Year 211 

'Forth, come forth, — unto the uttermost bor- 
ders; 

Forth, where the old despairs and shames im- 
plore thee, — ■ 

Forth of thy small shut house, — where thy 
dominion 

Widens before thee. 

'Spin, — spin! Lift up thy radiant distaff! 

Spinner thou art, — yea, from the dim begin- 
ning, 

Life and the web of All Life, and the hosts and 
their glory; — 

Thine was the spinning. 

'Spin, — spin! while that the Three were spin- 
ning, 

Thou, behind them, gavest their flax, O 
Mother; 

Thou, the spinner and spun and the thread 
that was severed; — 
Thou, not another. 

'Weave, — spin! Lift up thy heart with thy 

spinning ; — 
Look and behold it, shading thine eyes from 

our laughter: — 



212 The Lyric Year 

Life and the glory of Life and the hosts of 
the living, 

Here and hereafter! 

'Warp, — weft, woven of flame and rapture; 
Out of the Moon, silence and white desire; 
Out of the Sun, wonder and will and vision, 
One with his fire. 

'Fear not, fear not! Let not thy lowliness 

draw thee 
Back to thy small shut house, O thou too lowly ! 
Lo, in thy shrining hands the web of thy glory, 
Blinding and holy. 

'Never thine own; — not for thy poor posses- 
sion,— 

Sitting in darkness, spent with a dim en- 
deavor; — 

Life and the web of All Life, and the hosts of 
the living 

Now and forever. 

'Rise, come, with the Sun to thy chorusing 

vineyards ! 
We are but stars, and fading. Lo, thou art 

human. 
Put on thy beautiful garments, O thou Beloved, 
Thou who art Woman. 



The Lyric Year 213 

'Rise, come ! Blow out thy tremulous rush- 
light; 

Come, where the golden tides give cry of 
warning : — 

Over the dark, flooding the world with wonder, 
Flows the first Morning! 

'Rise, come ! Known, at last, of the nations; — 
Even of this thy world, thou hadst in thy keep- 
ing. — 
Thou sole sentinel over the dark of the ages ! — 
Love, the Unsleeping.' 



214 The Lyric Year 



THE CRISIS 

MURIEL RICE 

~"\EAR, do not ask for more. 
^^^ What more than friendship; the quick 

clasp of hand, 
Those words, when wordlessly we understand, 
The smile enriched with every smile of yore? 
Dear, do not ask for more. 

Dear, do not ask for less. 

What less than friendship; the hands free 

again, 
The careless laughter, careless of Love's pain, 
And thoughts a little wayward to confess? 
Dear, do not ask for less. 

And must I give thee all, 
All beyond friendship; my bright years to be 
Caught up in thine, a single destiny, — 
Or wilt thou pass forever from my call? 
Dear, must I give thee all? 



The Lyric Year 215 



FEAR NOT, O SOUL 

MARY ELEANOR ROBERTS 

FEAR not, O soul, that thou shalt sink too 
low! 
Infinity is deep as is the sea; 
And depth on depth is mercy under thee, 
And calm and limitless those waters flow; 
Profound beyond what human heart can know, 
Below the scorn of men, though deep it be, 
The waters that o'erwhelm thee, buoyantly 
Shall bear thee up if thou wilt have it so. 

And fear not thou, although thou climbest high. 
Toil upward. Still the mountain summits yield 
A farther, fairer world beneath the cloud; 
Rivers and lakes reflecting back the sky, 
Peaks beyond peaks, and valleys new-revealed: 
O soul of mine, be humble, and be proud! 



2i6 The Lyric Year 



PAT 

FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER 

HP HERE'S a lure in your laugh an 1 a spell 

in your smile, Pat; 
An' I know well there's roguery in iv'ry wile, 

Pat; 
An' it's achin' I am with your laughin', 
An' it's achin' I am for your laughin', 

Pat. 

There's a wail in your song an' the keenin' 

rings high, Pat; 
There's a fear in your joy an' a pang in your 

cry, Pat; 
An' it's wistful I am with your dreamin', 
An' it's wistful I am for your dreamin', 

Pat. 

There's a croon in your heart an' a plaint in 

your soul, Pat; 
There's a bliss in your grief an' wealth in your 

dole, Pat; 



The Lyric Year 217 

An' I'm lovin' ye, dear, for your carin', 
An' I'm lovin' ye, dear, for not cann', 

Pat. 



218 The Lyric Year 



PSALM 

JESSIE E. SAMPTER 

/ T A HEY have burned to Thee many tapers in 

many temples: 
I burn to Thee the taper of my heart. 

They have sought Thee at many altars, they 

have carried lights to find Thee : 
I find Thee in the white fire of my heart. 

They have gone forth restlessly, forging many 
shapes, images where they seek Thee, 
idols of deed and thought : 

Thou art the fire of my deeds; Thou art the 
white flame of my dreams. 

O vanity! They know things and codes and 

customs, 
They believe what they see to be true ; but they 

know not Thee, 
Thou art within the light of their eyes that see, 

and the core of fire. 



The Lyric Year 219 

The white fire of my heart forges the shapes 
of my brain; 

The white fire of my heart is a sun, and my 
deeds and thoughts are its dark planets; 

It is a far flame of Thee, a star in Thy firma- 
ment. 

With pleasant warmth flicker the red fires of 

the hearth, 
And the blue, mad flames of the marsh flare 

and consume themselves: 
I too am an ember of Thee, a little star; my 

warmth and my light travel a long way. 

So little, so wholly given to its human quest, 
And yet of Thee, wholly of Thee, Thou Un- 
speakable, 
All the colors of life in a burning white mist 
Pure and intense as Thou, O Heart of life ! 

Frail is my taper, it flickers in the storm, 

It is blown out in the great wind of the world : 

Yet when the world is dead and the seas are a 

crust of salt, 
When the sun is dark in heaven and the stars 

have changed their courses, 
Forever somewhere with Thee, on the altar of 

life 
Shall still burn the white fire of my heart. 



220 The Lyric Year 

TO BROWNING THE MUSIC-MASTER 

ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER 

(~\ I once was a lad 

^-^ Of a single thought, 

Melody-mad, 

With ears for naught 

But the miracles Bach and Beethoven wrought, 

When suddenly you, 

Out of the blue, 

With the formal old master Galuppi, dropped. 

And grim-eyed Hugues 

Of the mountainous fugues, 

And the rampired walls of the marvellous 

Abt, — 
To fashion me straight from Tone's far strand 
A way to a humaner, dearer shore — 
A bridge to poetry-land. 

Then to my soul I swore: 
If poets may win such store 
Of music's own highland air, 
Yet abide in the common round, 
Transmuting man's dusty ground 



The Lyric Year 221 

To gems for the world to wear — 
Theirs too is a priceless art. 
Is a thing that I fain would share — 
A thing that is near to my heart ! 

Thus were a young soul's ears unstopped 

By Galuppi and Hugues and the marvellous 

Abt, 
Who parted wide for wondering eyes 
The port of a second paradise; 
Showing how right it is and meet 
That a Schubert's voice may never repeat 
What a Shakespeare's lips once solemnize;— 
That music waxes where word-life wanes, 
And, with thirsty lips to Poetry's veins, 
Grows by her want, by her wasting, gains. 

For the protean art is this, and this: 
The rainbow shimmer of love's first bliss, 
A gesture despairing, a dream-like whim, 
The down on the plumes of the Cherubim, 
The body of Ariel, lissome and fresh — 
Too subtle for Poesie's golden mesh, 
An exquisite, evanescent shape 
That breaks through language to escape 
To the bourne of that country, brighter, vaster, 
Where now you are singing, dear Music- 
Master, 



222 The Lyric Year 



AMERICA 



HERMAN SCHEFFAUER 



TX7HITE leman of the West and ponderous 
* * Time — 

Still White ! though charred with zones of sin, 
White nymph, where coupled oceans chime 
And the Gulf is great with din, 

thou exposed with wounded flanks 

On argent promontories, on coasts that climb— 
Thy son am I ! Shall I give thanks 
For that? for that, down all my days, 
Give thanks to thee, young mother, thanks and 
praise? 

1 mark thy cities, ant-hills in thy lap, 
The gray spume of the tumbled multitude 
Blown from the Old World's shoal and crest 
As by some thunderclap 

When storms embrace in midnight interlude, — 
Swart foam that mounts upon thy breast 
Where the heels of Helots trample rude — 
Ah, Golgotha where giant crucifixes rest! 



The Lyric Year 223 

What red Tornadoes violate thee, 
What marshes seethe within thy tracts, 
Pale mistress of the fettered States! 
Much do I love thee, much do hate thee, 
With iron loves and with golden hates. 
Not till thy savage cataracts 
Shall wash thee pure, shall visions mate thee — 
Niagara's flails and rivers threshes to dust 
And terrible tongues of spar shall purge thy 
lust! 

Though thou at thy domed breasts hast lain me, 

Too mortal was the milk perchance; 

Well haply its fierce posset then had slain me 

Ere it sank lees of anger in my blood! — 

Now must the blades of starlight lance 

These fevers from the flesh of me, — 

I that am marble caked with mud, 

I that am troubled earth, but earth of thee. 

A hint of some stupendous birth 

Hath come to me 

Across thy laden oceans, Earth, 

Across thy silences, Eternity! 

The eye of this lone wanderer must see 

The blank horizon hewn and bent — 

Stage where a fateful dawn must burst, 



224 The Lyric Year 

As when irascible lightnings bright 
Hiss through the armor joints of night, 
And the crashing mail of the dark is rent 
And there fall floods of unappeasable light 
To slake the world's gray agony, the thirst 
Of tribes that many desolate morns 
Have held in aching hands the ruinous horns 
Of old afflictions in their realm accurst. 
They drank the swordlike wind that blows 
From iron thrones in ancient lands, 
Till they fared with the western stars, and 

their woes 
.Were made less by thy hands. 



I mark thee, Woman, prone beneath the span 
Where hope's great arch, aflame above the 

wrack 
Of battles earthen and Tritonian, 
Lifts up the starred, intolerable Zodiac! 
Thy many fires I mark; hast thou no sun, 
White titaness that couchest in the West, 
Braiding thy murky tresses dun 
Midst hissing of the scythes that never rest? 
With sable feet, like swift eclipses run 
Thy vandals earth to rifle and deflower, 
Whilst panting 'neath the wings of thy simoons, 



The Lyric Year 225 

Thine insolent, salient walls mount hour by 

hour, 
Walls fiery with unreadable red runes, 
Tottering like Cyclops drunken with their 

power, 
Yet vain as spirals dancing from the dunes. 

Thy lust is for the millionfold, 
Idolatress ! thy boast is in thy swarms ! 
All riven by thy sulphurous rains 
That hounded beauty naked from thine arms, 
Behold the fane-fires ashen cold 
And jackals in the broken fanes! 
Idolatress that lovest monsters; gold 
With smouldering and Plutonian clouds 
Makes one vast ember of thy nakedness 
Though rude flocks cover as with shrouds 
Thy prone, majestic corpse, idolatress! 
Deep down thy rayless eyes I stare, 
Whose craters hold the unplumbed night, 
Where I would find the lost and laden soul 
The golden minotaur dragged to his lair, 
Where I would find the torches Mammon stole 
And see relumed great miracles of light, 
Like suns within the firmamental scroll. 

Out of the harsh duress of coal and steel, 



226 The Lyric Year 

The incubus of mass, the carnal welter 
Of myriads that under the chariot wheel 
Of Greed's arch-pontiff grovel, hast thou shel- 
ter, 
Hast thou a hospice in thy heart, 
Safe from thy heel? 

Or a feast for song, or temples hewn and fast, 
Or caverns holy with silence, aloft, apart, 
Wherein may dream the acolytes of art, 
Whence eagles, to be comrades of the blast, 
May yet spread wing for summits unadored? 
Above the hurricanoe's howl 
Thy clashing, maddened metal brays 
With thunderous cymbals and the incense 

steams 
From iron mouths innumerable, abhorred, 
Making thy seas impure, thy mountains foul. 
The passion that would build for years, not 

days, — 
Hast thou a flame to answer this— or praise? 

Thou art so young, O dust-beclouded Mother ! 
Art thou of song so fruitless, being young? 
Hath youth no magic shell for song, 
Nor ever a sibylline glory for thy tongue, 
No harp to drown the roar of brazen hives, 
No anthem, no sonorous tubes to smother 



The Lyric Year 227 

The clamor of mad anvils, the loud throng 
Of hucksters and of silver-blasted lives? 
Thy towns like fierce alembics vapor-plumed, 
Might brew phantasmal wines of dream, 
Their million lifted windows snare the gleam 
That from the sunk, tartarean dome 
Of sunset shoots, their granite shafts consumed 
Know the wild rapt sidereal fire, 
And Song of all exiles found no home 
Under thy cestus, from its solar lyre 
Fling sparkling galaxies upon thy shields 
Till the foam that floats in thy skies be red, 
Thine emerald savannahs and gold fields 
Stir like immortal lutes once more, 
And none shall ask thee again: Is Beauty dead? 
Till thou breed bards thy greatness waits 
In anchored ships of bronze beyond thy shore, 
And thy lost soul sits rocking by thy gates, 
And the tawny maelstroms violate thee, 
Suborned and pallid mistress of the States! — 
So the abysses in me must love yet hate thee 
With iron loves and with golden hates. 



228 The Lyric Year 



THE MOB 

EDWIN DAVIES SCHOONMAKER 

'yOU see me not while Justice keeps her seat; 
Where Right is on her throne I stand on 
guard, 
Or go my way upon my million feet, 
In peace I go — until my way is barred. 

I speak all tongues; about the world I range 
And live forever, though I seem to die. 
I am the bright impatience of slow change, 
The lightning when the storm is passing by. 

For ages I lie silent under wrong, 
Then seize some outcast man to be my head; 
From out the gutter I catch up a song; 
And round me, when I rest, the land is red. 

They call me brute who would not have me 

man; 
They keep me chained who would not see me 

free; 
They reap above the furrow that I ran; 
They eat my grindings — and they trample me. 



The Lyric Year 229 

I am the last cry of a land undone, 
The huge abortion of a people's pain. 
I rise and make a way where way was none ; 
I am their manhood come to life again. 



230 The Lyric Year 

LET THERE BE DREAMS TO-DAY 

CLINTON SCOLLARD 

T ET there be dreams — one said. I an- 
~^ swered, Yea, 
Let there be dreams to-day, 
Fair dreams that come and go 
As silently as snow, 
And one — this one — shall stay 
Within my heart of hearts for aye and aye ! 

This one dear dream! — O bugler, call the 
dawn! 

trumpeter, sound summons to the night! 
These twain are blended for my soul's delight 
And never shall be gone ! 

These twain o'er Garda with the sun and moon : 

1 have known many a boon, 

But no such guerdon as this dream confers. 

You who are beauty's faithful worshippers, 

Listen, for rapture stirs 

Within me at the conjuring of this dream! 

Sun-gleam, moon-beam, 

On Garda that is loveliness supreme ! 



The Lyric Year 231 

Gaze upon Garda's bosom! Gaze with awe! 

For surely mortal vision never saw 

So sapphirine a pool of under-sky ! 

Mark you where Garda's mountains lift on 

high, 
And the bold eagles fly 
I' the sun's fiery eye, 
Here, if it be on earth, is majesty! 

So let me dream my dream of dreams, and 

slake 
My sense of beauty's thirst, most perfect Lake ! 
And let the moon and sun 
In wondrous antiphon 
Repeat and yet repeat 
Their tale, and make this miracle complete ! 

In this, my vista-dream, shall Riva still 
Sit by its crescent harbor. From its hill 
Shall Malcesine's ancient castle throw 
Its bastioned shadow on the lake below, 
And isolated San Vigilio 
From the deep cincture of its cypress bower 
Face evermore the radiant sunset hour, 
Looking where Salo, amid verdant vines, 
In its blue haven like a jewel shines. 



232 The Lyric Year 

Still shall Gordone, among speading palms, 
Take the eternal airs of spring for alms, 
And Sirmione pine with backward gaze 
For the renascence of old Roman days, 
And sweet Catullus of the liquid phrase! 

Even the veriest hind 

May catch some marvel from the crooning wind 
Haunting the heath and hearth at evenfall 
When twilight shapes its etchings on the wall. 
Who was not born a dreamer in some wise, 
Let him be pitied ! Dull and dark his way. 
But he who sees with wide or lidded eyes, 
Waking or sleeping, some ethereal ray, 
A happiness is his none may gainsay; 
And so for me, in their all-golden guise, 
Let there be dreams to-day! 



The Lyric Year 233 



A PRAYER 

WENDELL PHILLIPS STAFFORD 

npHOU that canst hush the sea and brood 
A the land 

And softly lead the wandering worlds above, 
Keep Thou within the hollow of Thy hand 

The one I love. 

Lay on her head the crown of all delight, 
Lily and rose and not a leaf of rue; 

Clothe her with courage and immortal might, 
Strength to be true. 

And give her faith, O Father, give her faith 
In every mask Thy visage to perceive, 

And hear above all storms Thy voice that saith, 
Believe ! Believe ! 

Thine was the hand that struck the kindling 
spark 
And lit our torch with love's triumphant 
light; 
Let all the winds that beat it in the dark 
Make it more bright. 



234 The Lyric Year 



THE QUESTION 

MARION CUMMINGS STANLEY 

TX7*HEN on the starry skies I gaze 
* Or count the tale of time gone by, 

With fear I tremble and amaze, 
So brief, so frail a thing am I. 

Yet in this little brain is wrought 

The glittering web of time and space, 

And in the compass of a thought 
The rolling worlds have place. 

In vain I seek the sages all, 

In vain I question earth and sky. 

I am so great, I am so small, 
O God, what thing am I ? 



The Lyric Year 235 



AN ODE FOR THE CENTENARY OF 

THE BIRTH OF ROBERT 

BROWNING 

GEORGE STERLING 

A S unto lighter strains a boy might turn 
"*•. From where great altars burn 
And Music's grave archangels tread the night, 
So I, in seasons past, 
Loved not the bitter might 
And merciless control 
Of thy bleak trumpets calling to the soul. 
Their consummating blast 
Held inspirations of affright, 
As when a faun 
Hears mournful thunders roll 
On breathless, wide transparencies of dawn. 
Nor would I hear 
With thee, superb and clear 
The indomitable laughter of the race; 

Nor would I face 
Clean truth, with her cold agates of the well, 
Nor with thee trace 



236 The Lyric Year 

Her footprints passing upward to the snows, 

But sought a phantom rose 
And islands where the ghostly siren sings; 
Nor would I dwell 
Where star-forsaking wings 
On mortal thresholds hide their mystery, 

Nor watch with thee 
The light of heaven cast on common things. 



But now in dreams of day I see thee stand 

A grey, great sentry on the encompassed wall 

That fronts the Night forever, in thy hand 

A consecrated spear 
To test the dragons of man's ancient fear 

From secret gulfs that crawl — 
A captain of that choral band 
Whose reverend faces, anxious of the Dark, 

Yet undismayed 
By rain of ruined worlds against the night, 

Turned evermore to hark 
The music of God's silence, and were stayed 
By something other than the reason's light. 

And I have seen thee as 

An eagle, strong to pass 
Where tempest-shapen clouds go to and fro 

And winds and noons have birth, 



The Lyric Year 237 

But whose regard is on the lands below 

And wingless things of earth. 

And yet not thine for long 
The feigned passion of the nightingale, 
Nor shards of haliotis, nor the song 
Of cymballed fountains hidden in the dale, 
Nor gardens where the feet of Fragrance steal: 

'Twas thine the laying-on to feel 
Of tragic hands imperious and cold, 
That, grasping, led thee from the dreams of 

old, 

Making thee voyager 
Of seas within the cosmic solitude, 
Whose moons the long-familiar stars occlude — 

Whose living sunsets stir 
With visions of the timelessness we crave. 

And thou didst ride a wave 
That gathered solemn music to its breast, 
And, breaking, shook our strand with thought's 

unrest, 
Till men far inland heard its mighty call 
Where the young mornings vault the world's 

blue wall. 

Nature hath lonely voices at her heart 
And some thou heardst, for at thine own 
Were chords beyond all Art 



238 The Lyric Year 

That stir but to the eternal undertone. 

But not necessitous to thee 
The dreams that were when Arcady began 
Or Paphos soared in iris from the sea; 

For thou couldst guess 
The rainbows hidden in the frustrate slime, 

And saw' st in crownless Man 

A Titan scourged through Time 
With pains and raptures of his loneliness. 

And thou wast wanderer 
In that dim House that is the human heart, 

Where thou didst roam apart, 

Seeing what pillars were 
Between its deep foundations and the sun, 

What halls of dream undone, 
What seraphs hold compassionate their wings 
Before the youth and bitterness of things 

Ere all see clear 
The gain in loss, the triumph in the tear. 

Time's whitest loves lie radiant in thy song, 
Like starlight on an ocean, for thine own 

Was as a deathless lily grown 
In Paradise — ethereal and strong. 

And to thine eyes 
Earth had no earth that held not haughty dust, 
And seeds of future harvestings in trust, 



The Lyric Year 239 

And hidden azures of eventual skies. 

Yet hadst thou sharper strains, 
Even as the Power determines us with pains, 
And, seeing harvests, saw'st as well the chaff, 
And, seeing Beauty, saw'st her shames no less, 
Loosing the sweet, 
High thunder of thy Jovian laugh 
On souls purblind in their self-righteousness. 

O vision wide and keen! 
Which knew, untaught, that pains to joyance 

are 

As night unto the star 
That on the effacing dawn must burn unseen. 

And thou didst know what meat 

Was torn to give us milk, 
What countless worms made possible the silk 

That robes the mind, what plan 
Drew as a bubble from old infamies 

And fen-pools of the Past 
The shy and many-colored soul of man. 

Yea ! thou hast seen the lees 
In that rich cup we lift against the day, 
Seen the man-child at his disastrous play — 

His shafts without a mark, 
His fountains flowing downward to the dark, 

His maiming and his bars, 
Then turned to see 



240 The Lyric Year 

His vatic shadow cast athwart the stars, 
And his strange challenge to infinity. 



But who am I to speak, 
Far down the mountain, of its altar-peak, 

Or cross on feeble wings, 
Adventurous, the oceans in thy mind? 
We of a wider day's bewilderings 

For very light seem blind, 
And fearful of the gods our hands have 
formed. 

Some lift their eyes and seem 
To see at last the lofty human scheme 
Fading and toppling as a sunset stormed 
By wind and evening, with the stars in doubt. 
And some cry, On to Brotherhood! And 
some, 

(Their Dream's high music dumb) 
Nay! let us hide in roses all our chains, 

Tho* all the lamps go out! 

Let us accept our lords! 
Time's tensions move not save to subtler pains! 
And over all the Silence is as swords . . • 
Wherefore be near us in our day of choice, 

Lest Hell's red choirs rejoice; 

And may our counsels be 



The Lyric Year 241 

More wise, more kindly, for the thought of 
thee; 

And may our deeds attest 

Thy covenant of fame 
To men of after-years that see thy name 
Held like a flower by Honor to her breast. 
Thy station in our hearts long since was won — 

Safe from the jealous years — 
Thou of whose love, thou of whose thews and 

tears 
We rest most certain when the day is done 
And formless shadows close upon the sun! 
Thou wast a star ere death's long night shut 

down, 

And for thy brows the crown 
Was graven ere the birth-pangs, and thy bed 
Is now of hallowed marble, and a fane 

Among the mightier dead: 
More blameless than thine own what soul hath 

stood? 
Dost thou lie deaf until another Reign, 

Or hear as music o'er thy head 
The ceaseless trumpets of the war for Good? 
Ah, thou ! ah, thou ! 

Stills God thy question now? 



242 The Lyric Year 



THE CALL 

ALAN SULLIVAN 

npURN ye again, my people, turn; 
Enter my palace wild and rude, 
And cheerly let your camp-fires burn 
Throughout my scented solitude. 

The glare, the tumult and the stress 
Are gone with yesterday, and we 

Are children of the wilderness, 
Of wonder and of mystery. 

Mark how the tilted mountains lie 
Mantled with moss and cloistered fir. 

My brother, canst thou pass them by, 
Art thou not too a worshipper? 

The long lake wrinkling in the wind, 
The breathless wood, and, over all, 

Through tangled underbrush entwined 
The riot of a waterfall. 



The Lyric Year 243 

The multitudinous sounds that blend 
In one vast stillness void of sound, 

A slumber too divine to end, 
Interminable and profound. 

Close to the bosom undefiled 

Of her who bore mankind I press, 

Receiving, like a wandering child, 
Her inarticulate caress. 

Turn ye again, my people, turn, 
Enter my palace wild and rude, 

And cheerly let your camp-fires burn 
Throughout my scented solitude. 



244 The Lyric Year 



THE CITIES 

MILDRED McNEAL SWEENEY 

npO arduous wars, to Crusades far no more 
A With Richard and his kings, disdaining 

peace! 
No more to adventure on the perilous seas, 
When Drake and Probisher forsake the 
shore, 
Undo the sea's blue door, 
And fling their puny sails to the far advancing 
breeze. 

The wilderness is not! The roads are plain! 
The colonies are founded and are old! 
They bid no more the young men to be bold. 
They spread no more a perilous far domain — 

No realms to wrest from Spain — 
They heap the hand no more with diamond 
and gold. 

Whither to turn for fortune and desire! 
Where in an unconceived task to spend 



The Lyric Year 245 

This joyous strength! In what bright cause to 
lend 

A soul more fleet and restless than new fire, 
Sprung with the wind and higher! 

How by a service strange to attain the mar- 
vellous end ! 

So Life springs up, a prince within the breast, 
And cries Let not the vision dim away, 
And forward turns to a long imagined day, 
A messenger, bearing the divine unrest, 

The passion unconfessed, 
The winged unwritten law all spirit must obey. 

And young men rise and dream of mightier 
cares. 

They turn from fields and from the homely 
wage. 

Closed to their eyes is that abundant page. 

Dim stands the maid, and pale the rose she 
wears. 
Mute are the village fairs. 

They must press fleetly on, new perils to en- 
gage. 

And one doth leave his father's green expanse, 
And try his way. And find. And send the call 



246 The Lyric Year 

Exulting homeward. When his comrades all 
Give up their beating hearts to dusty chance, 

To arduous advance, 
And take the city way — paven street, gray sky, 
dull wall. 

A clerk's stool and a drudging office day. 

And for their guerdon all a paper fee. 

For home four narrow walls where none would 

be. 
No winds. No isles unknown and far away. 

No cloudy heaven and gay. 
No lands to win. No toils where arms shall 

mighty be. 

A paper task and nine o'clock to five. 
A pleasuring brief and harried by the crowd. 
Through every street the city murmuring loud. 
O Lord of Tasks, is this to be alive? 

Is this how souls should thrive? 
Is this that mighty all wherewith we are en* 
dowed? 

Ardent with youth we press within the door 
Of the incomparable age : then lost and blind 
Step forth in the light. All's new and all to 
find. 



The Lyric Year 247 

We grope our way along the enchanted floor 

One golden step the more, 
Giving breath and toil and dream to the em- 
piry of mind. 

The desk, the pen, the clack of many keys, 
The gain, the bitter loss told strictly down 
When blue day ends — -these are the iron crown 
Upon our eager brows, the new release, 

The invisible prize to seize, 
The Mind's most pure adventure that must fae 
our own! 

The body trudges, many-tasked and dumb. 
But ah, the Mind, a wanderer through the 

spheres, 
Takes spoil more strange than many thousand 

spears, 
And like a banner brings the future home, 

Sets in her windowed room 
Clotho to spinning, stays rude Atropos' ready 

shears. 

And evermore departs, desires, pursues, 
On some far visioned task being all intent — 
To build, to span, to brave the vast event, 
To lord the unwilling airs, and for our use, 



248 The Lyric Year 

That we may have fleet news, 
To brave one more divine, elusive element. 



O whither and whither? The bold and joyful 
host 

Toward the far goal steps on, in error and 
dream ; 

Follows what no man sees, a cloudy beam, 

A vision in the night, a mighty word half lost 
When some rude ford was crossed — 

Speeds like a ship in the tide on some broad- 
bosomed stream. 



If Daedalus and his eager son had known, 
Testing their wings dibove that windy isle ! 
If the slow fleets upon the ancient Nile 
Had known, and Philip's host in Macedon, 

Whither man's thought had gone! 
How had they stood at gaze, fallen hand, and 
glowing smile. 



So rise the royal cities and call aloud! 
And now as once to banners and to kings 
The young men hasten thither. Each lad 
brings 



The Lyric Year 249 

His humble service, labors and is proud, 

Amid the eager crowd, 
Proud of the towers, the wharves, the vision 
where it springs. 

O dear and arduous, bitter, strange and new! 
No more our loins we gird, nor need the 

sword ! 
It is our souls that bear the flaming word, 
That hasten valiantly and are sped from view 

Amid the unending blue, 
Bearing our homage forth to an unannounced 
lord. 



250 The Lyric Year 



I SHALL NOT CARE 

SARA TEASDALE 

\X7*HEN I am dead and over me bright April 
" * Shakes out her rain-drenched hair, 
Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted, 
I shall not care. 

I shall have peace as leafy trees are peaceful, 
When rain bends down the bough, 

And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted 
Than you are now. 



The Lyric Year 251 



SARPEDON 

EDITH M. THOMAS 

T1THEN the God of the darted light, obeying 
" * the Voice Supreme, 
The corse of divine Sarpedon had borne to a 

crystal stream, 
Had laved it therein, and embalmed, and 

clothed it in raiment fair, 
He called as a God may call, unheard in our 

nether air; 
And forth at his summons there came two 

children of Silence and Night; 
The younger was Sleep, and the elder was 

Death — both, noiseless in flight. 
Go, said the God, bear gently this prince to 

the land of his birth; 
There shall his friends and his lovers entomb 

him and heap up the earth, 
That men from afar shall descry, and though 

dead his name shall not die. 



252 The Lyric Year 

Then, heard by no mortal ear and discerned 

by no mortal eye, 
Unknown as the dew, they descend, and out 

of the evening gloom 
The corse of Sarpedon they bear, whence 

floated a sweet perfume 
That was from the God's embalming, blent 

with the flowers of Sleep. 
And soon were they far on wing over river 

and valley and steep. — 
But now with compassion they spake, as on- 
ward the hero they bore: 
I will lay a fair dream on his eyes. And I his 

last sigh will restore. 
Thereat, Sarpedon made murmur: Where 

now is the roar of the fight? 
Who are ye that bear me aloft through the 

star-jeweled vault of the night? 



Sleep am I, answered the younger, that ever 

to thee was so kind. 
Death am I, answered the elder, whom best 

of all friends thou shalt find. 
And together they spake: We are bearing 

thee on to the land of thy birth; 



The Lyric Year 253 

There shall thy friends and thy lovers entomb 

thee and heap up the earth, 
That men from afar shall descry, and though 

dead thy name shall not die. 

Thus, over river and valley and steep they 
swept through the sky, 

When, hearken the Voice that falls with com- 
pelling, from far in the height: 

Lift hither, my son, my Sarpedon, O children 
of Silence and Night I 

Then, as a smoke in lands that lie waste from 

some mountain of fire, 
Straight-rising, Sarpedon they bring to the 

knees and the tears of his sire. 
And the hand of the God, full of ruth, on the 

hand of the hero was laid, 
And the tears that are more than a mortal's — 

the tears of the God were not stayed! 
Spake then Sarpedon, upheld on the pinions 

of Sleep and Death — 
Spake by the force of the Deity giving brief 

largess of breath: 
Who layeth a hand on my hand, unmoving and 

deedless for aye? 



254 The Lyric Year 

And who on my brows and mine eyelids the 

lips of the living doth lay? 
Then answer made Zeus: Thou dear one! 

The Father of men and of Gods — 
I, ere thy godlike form shall be laid under 

Lycian clods, 
Have called to me hither thy bearers that I 

once more may embrace 
Thee whom in fight I oft steeled though never 

thou knewest my face! 

Is it thou, O my Father, of whom would my 

Mother, Europa, speak oft, 
Saying, u Thy Father will not let thee die, but 

will bear thee aloft — 
Will snatch thee away from the strife ere the 

doom of a mortal shall fall!" 
Yet now wilt thou see me, encompassed and 

vanquished for aye and for all? 

Then sooth was the Voice: O son, as thy 

Mother, Europa, hath died — 
A flower of the field, of the race that must 

fade with the summer's pride, 
So must this flower of thy flesh and thy face — 

sweet mould of her own — 
Descend into sluggish earth and forever be no 

more known. 



The Lyric Year 255 

Not thus with my portion in thee, O my child ! 

Already on high 
Thou pacest with those that never were born, 

that never shall die ! 

Then smiled the dead lips of Sarpedon, and 

on his dead eyes was the smile, 
For Sleep took the dream from his breast and 

Death the last sigh did beguile. 
So onward they pass through the night and at 

dawn without sound they descend, 
And leave the fair corse in a mead, to be found 

by lover or friend. 



256 The Lyric Year 



A RITUAL FOR A FUNERAL 

RIDGELY TORRENCE 

A Voice To the glowing feast of birth 

Shall Say: All the distant guests return ; 

Nothing pauses in the earth. 
But onward, where no temporal eye may 

range, 
The lover and the love shall burn — 
Upward, to the widening halls of change. 
Though the paths be steep and strange, 
On the steadfast dreams ascending, 
Ever shall the wreathed door be found, 
With the spirit's bridal garland crowned, 
And the silver babbling welcome sound 
To the banquet never ending. 

And the wanderer entering ever young — 
Flying toward the flying light — 
Shall find the ripened worlds outflung 
Upon the tables of his might. 
All that sweetly rose and globed and 
swayed 



The Lyric Year 257 

On the laddered vines of his endeavor 
Shall be gathered up in love and weighed, 
Gathered, pressed and poured with songs 

for ever. 
Golden apples of appeasement there, 
Seeds to plant for those who rise thereafter, 
Iron bowls of holy labor bear 
Between the lamps of gorgeous laughter. 
Never shall the revel fade 
Nor the passing song be sung. 

Beyond the outmost moons of sleep 

From world to world the living rivers leap. 

There as clear water waiting for our thirst 

Is loveliness and unto each his own; 

For all things deepen unto love alone 

And unto deeper wakenings draw 

Surely, as to a runner's goal; 

And he whose love is greatest shall be first 

Though over him should roll 

The rushing trumpets of the sundered law 

Pouring their wrathful vials, 

And round him heavy swords of final trials 

Smite, yet shall they melt when he has passed 

And entered trembling to the inmost Awe 

Whose airs are clear surprise; where he at 

last 
With eyes uptoiling to the streaming dome, 



258 The Lyric Year 

Shall see the fire-torn splendors wheeling 

soft, 
Shall hear an ocean music slowly wash aloft 
And find himself again at home 
Within his father's house: 
Clasping new fruitage from the heavenly 

boughs, 
Being sweetly warmed and fed 
With love the honeycomb and bread, 
And remembering with smiles the things 

departed, 
He shall drink the glory in the veiled cup, 
Seeing the healing of the broken-hearted 
And the fallen sparrow lifted up. 

And Though now the brief pavilion of our day 

Another Fades as we toil to build the unfinished 

Voice wall, 

Shall Say: Though now no autumn orchard, yielding 

all, 
Fulfills the flowers of May, 
Yet on the pinions of immortal yearning, 
Beyond the shadow of the unreturning, 
Above the star that gives us wise fore- 
warning 
How wide the dusk enrings the steadfast 
light, 



The Lyric Year 259 

We shall renew and gather and requite, 
We shall pursue and seize again the 

morning 
And be found no more by night. 

Though from the evening to the morning 

glowing 
No orb may rise nor orbit-song be clear, 
Where deeper need is shall be deeper 

knowing, 
Where music hides there shall be ears to 

hear. 
Down from the arches of dream a thunder 

of wings 
Rolls, and for ever along the inward sight, 
Out of the sorrowing cloud and blowing 

fear, 
With all the heavens rushing earthward, 

armed, 
A lightning plunging from the homes of 

light 
Hints to the spirit that it stands unharmed. 
And over all, beacons the face afar 
Of the stern justice, weighing our desire, 
Sifting the will-to-be from what we are, 
Balancing longing with the longed-for 

fire, 



260 The Lyric Year 

Hunger with food, thirst with unfaltering 

springs, 
Hope with the hope fulfilled, and with the 

night, a star. 



Who has not left a dark abode 
At noon, upon swift errands bent, 
And stared along a blazing road 
Sightless, till the pulsing veils were rent 
That wisely waved him from the heart of 

light. 
Even so with radiance overflowed, 
The earthly vision faints with sight 
And shall, till all grows clear with seeing 
And all with mightier gaze may know 
That what was seen here shall not cease 

from being. 
Shall not cease — a sign is given; lo, 
As a great circle, widening in the sea, 
Passes forever to the shore, so we! 
And if there be no coast nor any beach, 
Yet shall the spirit wander undefeated; 
With battles and with sweet embracings, 

each 
An endless circle endlessly completed. 



The Lyric Year 261 

At the The Sea remains. The lights illumed of old 

Grave or p or beacon on the bosom of the deep 

shdi 2*. Fail not nor sleep ' 

ay. g ut j en j the j r fl ames £ or eyer t0 t ^ e ^^ 

Of all the watch-fires newly lighted there. 
And though on drifting skies the lodestar 

wanes, 
The ceaseless benediction of the rains 
Shall, soon or late, out of the gleaming air, 
Utter the rainbow to the cloud despair, 
Make dim the half-light, dark the light 

that feigns 
And of the morning make the wanderer 

aware. 
The sea remains. 

And This Nothing shall be lost nor fall 
Shall Be From the winter-dreaming tree 

Said But shall find another bough 

Toward the And fly in other summers free. 
Ashes: Endless Springs have kept the vow. 

Here the spheral secret learn: 

One has vanished into All; 

All in One shall later burn 

Outward from the dust. 

And now, 

As seed unto the seed's recall, 

Return. 



262 The Lyric Year 

Here the And through the glances of the rain 

Ashes Shall His victor hours shall shine again. 
Be Hidden His dreams, as lightnings, sweet to dare, 

from Sight: Shall flower about us in the air, 

And we shall weave them with our wills 
To be a banner on the hills. 
In music shall his happy voices move 
And, in the silences, his love. 

Not from the shore may any requiem swell 

Nor winging of farewell 

From us within the bubble Time or Place; 

We are already on the water's face, 

And wave with wave shall endlessly ally, 

Too near for need of summons or recall: 

The end of earth is the beginning sky; 

The sea is under all, 

From whose unfathomed wells we rise and 

flow 
Slowly along a winding glory, seeing 
The wise unrest from which we had our 

being 
And the ineffable to which we go. 



The Lyric Year 263 



AN EASTER CANTICLE 

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 

i"N every trembling bud and bloom 
A That cleaves the earth, a flowery sword, 
I see Thee come from out the tomb, 
Thou risen Lord. 

In every April wind that sings 

Down lanes that make the heart rejoice; 
Yea, in the word the wood-thrush brings, 

I hear Thy voice. 

Lo! every tulip is a cup 

To hold Thy morning's brimming wine; 
Drink, O my soul, the wonder up — 

Is it not thine ? 

The great Lord God, invisible, 

Hath roused to rapture the green grass; 
Through sunlit mead and dew-drenched dell, 

I see Him pass. 



264 The Lyric Year 

His old immortal glory wakes 

The rushing streams and emerald hills; 
His ancient trumpet softly shakes 

The daffodils. 

Thou art not dead! Thou art the whole 
Of life that quickens in the sod; 

Green April is Thy very soul, 
Thou great Lord God! 



The Lyric Year 26$ 



H 



THE WIFE 

ANNA SPENCER TWITCHELL 
E sees the wife, from slim young comeli- 



ness, 

With bearing of his children and their care, 
Grow stooped and withered, and the shining 

hair 
That was his pride grow thin and lustreless; 
Day after day, with wordless, pained distress, 
He strives to ease the load her shoulders bear, 
Lifting a burden here, a burden there, 
Or offering some clumsy, rare caress. 

But ah ! her girl-face never was so fair, 
And eyes and lips that answered his desire, 
Are limned with sacred meaning to him now; 
To his rapt sight, an angel might aspire 
To claim the stature of her soul, or wear 
The halo that surrounds her mother-brow. 



266 The Lyric Year 



CALIBAN IN THE COAL MINES 

LOUIS UNTERMEYER 

/^ OD, we don't like to complain, 
^^ We know that the mines are no lark, 
But — there's the pools from the rain, 
But — there's the cold and the dark. 

God, you don't know what it is, 
You, in Your well-lighted sky, 

Watching a meteor whizz — 
Warm, with the sun always by. 

God, if You had but the moon 

Stuck in Your cap for a lamp, 
Even You'd tire of it soon 

Down in the dark and the damp. . . 

Nothing but blackness above, 

And nothing that moves but the cars — 
God, in return for our love, 

Fling us a handful of stars! 



The Lyric Year 267 

A DAY'S END 

ALLAN UPDEGRAFF 

/^ORGEOUS with foliate glows till the 
^-* overfilled heart overthrown 

Sickens and aches in a dazzle and revel of 
color and light, 
Petal by petal the day, deflowered like a rose 
overblown, 
Crumbles to opaline dust in the old black 
casket of night. 
It crumbles, fades utterly, dies with a dead 
expressionless passion, 
Yielding its beauty in languor, wasting itself 
like a dream: — 
No rose, no rose, but rather that fair mad 
maiden in fashion, 
Who sang and made rhymes of her flowers 
and laughed in the death of the 
stream — 
Ophelia : or that Saint Sebastian who stands 
with throat pierced with an arrow, 
Calm as an elder Greek god, less man than 
a glorified thing. 



268 The Lyric Year 

So strange, so vapid, so surcharged with un- 
human questions to harrow 
The allured and repelled human soul, is 
this day's vanishing. 



So they have vanished by billions, they drift 
in ethereal darkness; 
To the outermost infinite bourne of space 
their wraiths drive on, 
Wraiths whose Gorgon's beauty might freeze 
the stars into starkness: 
Was it for this that the winds blew cool 
from the caves of the dawn? 
Was it for this that the noon slipped shining 
over the mountains, 
Over the vaporous hills and vague resplen- 
dence of blue? 
So the worlds are fed with days as with ever- 
used waters the fountains, 
Glories eternally dead which the dead blind 
gods renew. 
Mile sweeps of scarlets that tremble, dim 
oceans of palpitant umber, 
Purples as wide as the heavens, islands of 
crimson and gold, 



The Lyric Year 269 

Bastions and turrets and towers, colors and 
glows without number — 
How are you better than leaves that glow 
as they die in the cold? 



Could it cry out, show sentience, either it or 
the beings that shape it, 
This beauty of death, these shapers of 
death! — as aforetime the blood 
Mantled up the white face of his statue who 
had died had he chanced to undrape it 
To find it the same marble maiden, un- 
shamed in undraped maidenhood. 
But the splendor is blind as the stony dim mo- 
tionless eyes of a Sibyl 
Wherein in earlier days, Faith seeking the 
meaning of life 
Gazed and implored a sign, letting the bull's 
blood dribble 
Over the altar's faggots from the curved 
sacrificial knife. 
For the Homes of the Blessed have vanished 
out of the sunset's hollow; 
Tithonus waits not for Aurora where the 
splendor of evening dies; 



270 The Lyric Year 

Ra is banished with Ormazd, Joshua's sun with 
Apollo, 
And the spirit of man revokes the spirit 
it breathed in the skies. 



Blue depths above, clouds, cliffs, the wide bur- 
nished ocean under, 
And the Powers whose signs are planets 
have laid thereon their hands : 
Pure beauty is here in the highest, the world's 
transcendent wonder 
Of line and design and color, untroubled of 
thought, which is man's. 
Though it brand itself on my senses, am I a 
child for this plaything? 
I have dreamed, I have blinked too long in 
kaleidoscopes of Chance 
Where the suns and stars are glass-bits and 
the strength between a lay thing 
To fetter the flying ions in their endless 
figured dance ! 
I will bid farewell to beauty, pure beauty, all 
gaud and gleaming, 
In which there is no truth — no aim I can 
understand! 



The Lyric Year 271 

I will break the stone, cleave wood, and give 
to the steel new seeming: 
Be a god in my own right, and a right good 
god of my hand! 



272 The Lyric Year 



THE FALLEN PHARAOH 

LEONARD VAN NOPPEN 

QTATUED, he lies beneath the scornful 

stars, 
Gazing forever on the infinite; 
And all but doom is banished from his sight, 
And he is still, that woke a storm of wars. 
And he remembers how no human bars 
Stayed the ascension of his conquering flight, 
When like a constellation of the night 
He trailed the triumph of his pageant cars. 

And he remembers, too, that veiled hour 
When he met Death, when, prone as any slave, 
He knelt to Silence, powerless in power. 
Lo, into dust the Ages, anger-shod, 
Trample him prostrate, anchored to his grave, 
Kingdomless, staring at the Heights of God! 



The Lyric Year 273 



THE HYMN OF ARMAGEDDON 

GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK 

*' And I stood upon the sands of the sea, and I saw a Beast 
"rise up out of the sea, having seven heads. . . . And 
€f he gathered them together into a place called in the 
" Hebrew tongue Armageddon. . . . And the great 
«« city was divided into three parts." — Revelations — St. John. 

A POCALYPTIC thunders roll out of the 
^ crimson East: 
The Day of Judgment is at hand, and we shall 

slay the Beast. 
What are the seven heads of him — the Beast 

that shall be slain? 
Sullivan, Taggart, Lorimer, Barnes, Penrose, 

Murphy, Crane. 
Into what cities leads his trail in venom steeped 

and gore? 
Ask Frisco, ask Chicago, mark New York and 

Baltimore. 
Where shall we wage the goodly fight, for 

whom unsheath the sword? 
We stand at Armageddon and we battle for 

the Lord! 



274 The Lyric Year 

Though hell spit forth its snarling host we 

shall not flinch or quail, 
For in the last great skirmish God's own truth 

must prevail. 
Have they not seen the burning scroll that 

flames upon the wall, 
Of how their house is built of sand, and how 

their pride must fall? 
The cough of little lads that sweat where 

never sun sheds light, 
The sob of starving children and their mothers 

in the night, 
These, and the wrong of ages, we carry as a 

sword, 
Who stand at Armageddon and who battle for 

the Lord! 



God's soldiers from the West are we, from 

North and East and South, 
The seed of them who flung the tea into the 

harbor's mouth, 
And those who fought where Grant fought and 

those who fought with Lee, 
And those who under alien stars first dreamed 

of liberty. 



r The Lyric Year 275 

Not those of little faith whose speech is soft, 
whose ways are dark, 

Nor those upon whose forehead the Beast has 
set his mark. 

Out of the hand of justice we snatch her falter- 
ing sword; 

We stand at Armageddon and we battle for 
the Lord! 



The sternest militant of God whose trumpet in 

the fray 
Has cleft the city into three shall lead us on 

this day. 
The holy strength that David had is his, the 

faith that saves, 
For he shall free the toilers as Abe Lincoln 

freed the slaves. 
And he shall rouse the lukewarm and those 

whose eyes are dim, 
The hope of twenty centuries has found a voice 

in him. 
Because the Beast shall froth with wrath and 

perish by his sword, 
He leads at Armageddon the legions of the 

Lord! 



276 The Lyric Year 

For he shall move the mountains that groan 

with ancient sham, 
And mete with equal measure to the lion and 

the lamb. 
And he shall wipe away the tears that burn on 

woman's cheek, 
For in the nation's council hence the mothers, 

too, shall speak. 
Through him the rose of peace shall blow from 

the red rose of strife, 
America shall write his name into the Book of 

Life. 
And where at Armageddon we battle with the 

sword 
Shall rise the mystic commonwealth, the City 

of the Lord! 



The Lyric Year 277 



ADONIS 

BLANCHE SHOEMAKER WAGSTAFF 

CNOW-SHIMMER on his bosom, blond and 
^ bare ; 

Sun-birth upon his lips of scarlet flame; 
And passion scenting all his tawny hair — 

Such beauty is Death's claim! 

Slain in a tempest of the soul: who knows? 

But his quiescent body, cold and white, 
Thrills me with rapture like some moon- 
drenched rose 

Upon a summer night. 

Look, I shall take him now to be my own ! 

Our bridal couch the damp worm-cankered 
sod; 
And my wild kisses shall be only known 

To God . . . 



278 The Lyric Year 



THE BLACK DICE 

HENRY CHRISTEEN WARNACK 

A T night when I play with the black dice, 
■* Draining my evil wine — 

The evil dice, with a will of their own, 

And wine that is blood of a soul — 
I come to the gate of a city, 

A gateway with never a key, 
Whose portals are wide for the many, 

But ever are closed to me. 

For I play in the night with the black dice ; 

With wine are my garments stained; 
False are the dice and clotted, 

With wine that is blood of a soul — 
The City Eternal is calling, 

A city of flame and snow — 
With the swine and their husks about me, 

I hear but I may not go. 

Yet once, as I played with the black dice, 
Spilling my evil wine, 



The Lyric Year 279 

The dice and the wine were as mirrors, 

And I saw the hands of a soul 
Clutch at the thing that it strove for. 

Ah, then came an end of the night — 
The dead fell away from my footsteps, 

And I entered the City of Light. 



280 The Lyric Year 



CONFESSION 

JOHN HALL WHEELOCK 

OOK in my songs and you shall find her, 
■■"^ Though from my lips a name so dear 
Be uttered never, lost forever — 

Lean with your heart and listen here! 
For words too sweet, for speech too holy, 

Lean to my song and listen well, 
Here as the heart's blood in the heart-beat, 

Here as the sea's voice in the shell : 
Though from my loving vanished, vanished, 

Still in my song it slumbers deep, 
Like the one thought all day close guarded, 

Betrayed by passionate lips in sleep. 



The Lyric Year 281 



THE FORGOTTEN SOUL 

MARGARET WIDDEMER 

JHPWAS I that cried against the pane on All 
-*- Souls' Night 

(O pulse o' my heart's life, how could you 
never hear?) 
You filled the room I knew with yellow candle- 
light, 
And cheered the girl beside you when she 
prayed in fear. 



'Twas I that touched your shoulder in the gray 
wood-mist 
(O core o' my heart's heart, how could you 
never know?) 
You only frowned and shuddered ere you bent 
and kissed 
The girl hard by you, handfast, where I 
used to go. 



282 The Lyric Year 

'Twas I that stood to greet you on the church- 
yard pave 
(O fire o' my heart's grief, how could you 
never see?) 
You smiled in pleasant dreaming as you 
crossed my grave, 
And crooned a little love-song where they 
buried me. 



The Lyric Year 283 



WHITMAN AND EMERSON 

MARGUERITE O. B. WILKINSON 

1V/T ASTER who bravely planted seeds un- 

"■■ ■ known 

And labored with a stark sincerity 

To aid their sturdy growth, behold them 

grown ! 
Thy harvest hath restored our granary: 
Wherefore, for bread, to thee and thee alone 
Of all the bards who sing from sea to sea 
Our native Great must look, and looking own 
Thy providence for their futurity. 

Let those who have a softer, daintier need 

At other banquets rest; they will not find 

Such power as thine to nourish — bread indeed, 

Giving new life to body, heart and mind: 

They will not find in all the halls of Time 

A food more hardy, natural, sublime. 
* * * 



284 The Lyric Year 

Master who entered in the heat of day 
The vineyard where the purple of our race 
Through olden courses found a tortuous way 
On to the grape's fruition, 'twas thy grace 
To dig about the roots of our dismay, 
To speed the native sap, to make a place 
For tendrils new, to press new fruit and say: 
Unto this Grail, O Nation, lift thy face! 

Thy thought hath filled our chalice to the brim, 
And made a sacrament for those who live 
Above the present moment's garish whim, 
In hope to be, to toil, to love, to give : 
Strong spiritual vintages combine 
In this thy cup. There is no sweeter wine. 



The Lyric Year 285 



BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 

GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY 

T RODE in the dark of the spirit 

A marvellous, marvellous way; 
The faiths that the races inherit 

Behind in the sunset lay; 
Dome, mosque, and temple huddled 

Bade farewell to the day; 
But I rode into the leagues of the dark, 
There was no light but my hoof-beats' spark 

That sprang from that marvellous way. 

Behind were the coffined gods in their shroud 

Of jungle, desert and mound, 
The mighty man-bones and the mummies proud 

Stark in their caves underground; 
And the planet that sepulchres god and man 

Bore me in the cone of its dark profound 
To the ultimate clash in stellar space, 
The way of the dead, god-making race 

Whirled with its dead gods round. 



286 The Lyric Year 

And my heart as the night grew colder 
Drew near to the heart of my steed; 

I had pillowed my head on his shoulder 
Long years in the sand and the reed; 

Long ago he was foaled of the Muses, 
And sired of the heroes' deed; 

And he came unto me by the fountain 

Of the old Hellenic mountain, 

And of heaven is his breed. 

* 

So my heart grew near to the heart of my 
horse 

Who was wiser, far wiser than I ; 
Yet wherever I leaned in my spirit's course, 

He swayed, and questioned not why; 
And this was because he was born above, 

A child of the beautiful sky; 
And now we were come to the kingdoms black, 
And nevermore should we journey back 

To the land where dead men lie. 

Now whether or not in that grewsome air 
My soul was seized by the dread cafard 4 

Terror of deserts, I cannot swear; 

But I rode straight into an orbed star, 

Where only reigned the spirit of good, 
And only the holy and virtuous are; 



The Lyric Year 287 

And my horse's eyes sent forth sun-rays, 
And in my own was a noontide gaze 
That mastered that splendid star. 

The madness of deserts, if so it be, 

Burned in my brain, and I saw 
The multitudinous progeny 

Of the talon and the claw; 
And Mammon in all their palaces 

Gaped with a golden maw; 
And we rode far off from the glittering roofs, 
And the horse, as he passed, with his heaven- 
shod hoofs 

Broke the tables of their law. 

And we came to a city adjacent thereby, 

For the twain to one empire belong; 
Black over it hung a terrible cry 

From eternal years of wrong; 
And the land, it was full of gallows and prisons 

And the horrible deeds of the strong; 
And we fled; but the flash of my horse's feet 
Broke open the jails in every street, 

And lightnings burned there long. 

iWe were past the good and the evil 
In the spirit's uttermost dark; 



288 The Lyric Year 

He is neither god nor devil 

For whom my heart-beats hark; 

And I leaned my cheek to my horse's neck 
And I sang to his ear in the dark, — 

"There is neither good nor evil, 

There is neither god nor devil, 

And our way lies on through the dark. 



"Once I saw by a throne 

A burning angel who cried, — 
*I will suffer all woes that man's spirit has 
known,' 

And he plunged in the turbid tide; 
And wherever he sank with that heart of love, 

He rose up purified; 
Glowed brighter his limbs and his beautiful 

face, 
And he went not back to the heavenly place, 

And he drew all men to his side. 



"I have never heard it or learnt it, 

It is in me, like my soul, 
And the sights of this world have burnt it 

In me to a living coal, — 
The soul of man is a masterless thing 

And bides not another's control; 



The Lyric Year 289 

And gypsy-broods of bandit-loins 
Shall teach what the lawless life enjoins 
Upon the lawless soul. 



"When we dare neither to loose nor to bind, 

However to us things appear; 
When whatsoever in others we find, 

We shall feel neither shame nor fear; 
When we learn that to love the lowliest 

We must first salute him our peer; 
When the basest is most our brother, 
And we neither look down on nor up to an- 
other, — 

The end of our ride shall be near.'* 



A wind arose from the dreadful past, 

And the sand smoked on the knoll; 
I saw, blown by the bolts of the blast, 

The shreds of the Judgment Scroll; 
I heard the death-spasms of Justice old 

Under the seas and the mountains roll; 
Then the horse who had borne me through all 

disaster, 
Turned blazing eyes upon me his master, 

For the thoughts I sing are his soul. 



290 The Lyric Year 

And I sang in his ear, — " 'Tis the old world 
dying 
Whose death-cries through heaven are 
rolled; 
Through the souls of men a flame is flying 

That shall a new firmament mould; 
And the uncreated light in man's spirit 

Shall sun, moon and stars unfold;" 
Then the horse snuffed the dark with his nos- 
trils bright, 
And he strode, and he stretched, and he 
neighed to the light 
That shall beam at the word to be told. 



The Lyric Year 291 



ALIEN SUN-FLOWERS 

REA WOODMAN 

r\ DAFFODIL of the western sky, 
^^ Where the day is breathing low: 
O retrospect of the folded hills 

When quiet breezes blow: 
O heart, heart, heart, under this daffodil sky, 

Under a silence tender and deep — 
Somewhere the prairies cry, 

Squandering sunset-gold, to sleep 
Under a daffodil sky. 

O hyacinth of the western sky, 

Where the day is flushed with death: 
O Sibyl-grief of the watching hills 

That seem to hold their breath: 
O heart, heart, heart, under this hyacinth sky, 

Under a sorrow prolonged and deep — 
Somewhere the prairies sigh, 

Sobbing their twilight thoughts asleep, 
Under a hyacinth sky. 



292 The Lyric Year 

O amaranth of the western sky, 

Where the grayling light dies cold: 
O amplitude of the viewless hills 

So withered and so old: 
O heart, heart, heart, under this amaranth sky, 

Under the star-dusk wistful and deep — - 
Somewhere the prairies lie, 

Yielding to darkling dreams and sleep, 
Under an amaranth sky. 



The Lyric Year 293 

THE GRAY MAN 

WILLIAM HERVEY WOODS 

f~^ RAY Man, O Gray Man, and good man 
^■^ riding, riding 

So daringly, so certainly the thunder-roads 
of War, 
When came and whence came to thee thy gift 
of guiding, 
That soldier-hearts to martial arts thou 
leadest like a star? 

Shy heart and silent, we watched thee once 
with smiling, 
Each homely thing outshadowing, we 
thought, the man aright, 
Steadfast and rough-cast, without one grace 
beguiling — 
O Man of men, we had not then seen Stone- 
wall Jackson fight! 

Nile hymns his Pharaohs, and Tiber's floods 
go telling 
The Caesars' deed the while they speed by 
storied shores of old — 



294 The Lyric Year 

Thy deeds three rivers, and each a Nile out- 
swelling, 
In choral tide horizon wide around the 
world have rolled. 

Thou, too, his Valley, bright Shenandoah of 

story, 
Thy singing name to Jackson's fame runs like 

a haunting tune, 
Till seers and sages forsake old fields of glory 
To scan the plains where his campaigns win 

to their wondrous noon. 

Look ye — he's coming! That's he bareheaded 
loping, 
In haste to flee his soldiers' glee, down 
shouting lines he goes — 
Yell, boys, and rout him! He knows what 
you're but hoping, 
And this day done, your battle sun will set 
on beaten foes. 



The Lyric Year 295 



SELMA 

WILLARD HUNTINGTON WRIGHT 

TJTTHEN Selma died 
* * No loved one watched, bereft and sor- 
row-eyed, 
Above her calm profundity of sleep; 
There was no one to say a prayer, or weep 
A tear for some old memory; no hand 
To close the dingy shade ; no one to stand 
At the dark door and guard her squalid rest, 
Or draw the spread across her quiet breast. 
Outside the reeling music cried and whined 
And wheedled in the night; through the black 

blind 
A sword of yellow light fell in the room 
Splitting the gloom. 

They came to look, the blighted and the seared, 
To stare at her from out their drawn eyes, 

bleared 
With drink and sin. A little while they gazed 
Down at the slight pinched figure on the bed, 



296 The Lyric Year 

And one there was who gently stooped and 

raised 
The cold, unjewelled fingers of the dead; 
Another creature who had watched the while 
Cracked her red lips into a sneering smile; 
And one, whose soul was lonelier than the rest, 
Let fall the rasping semblance of a jest. 
Then, cackling, they passed out, and no one 

knew 
That on the dead girl's cheek a faint rose blew, 
Nor that a terrifying, startled trace 
Of unforgotten childhood marked her face . . . 

But one there was who bowed beneath the ruth 
Of her dishevelled youth. 
And when they went, he lingered by the bed, 
For he knew all the sorrow of the dead: 
Hers was the grief of loving overmuch, 
And all her hopes had withered at his touch: 
Hers was the fate to play the harlot's part; 
And all her dreams were tangled round his 
heart. 



The Lyric Year 297 



TO A CITY SWALLOW 

EDITH WYATT 

/^WER the height of the house-top sea, sil- 
^^ ver and blue and gray, 
A swallow flies in my city skies and cries of 
the city May. 

Up from the South, swallow, fly to the North, 

over the roof-top miles, 
The pillaring stacks and the steam-cloud racks 

and the telegraph's argent files, 
Rich man's and poor man's and beggar man's 

town, odors of pine and pitch, 
Marbles and chalk on the hop-scotch walk, and 

racketing rail and switch, 
Over a thousand close-housed streets with a 

million steps arow, 
Where the nurses walk and the children talk 

and the light-gowned women go ; 
Dock-roof and dive-roof and prison-house roof, 

pebbled and buff and brown, 
Cry me the myriad souls' abode and the roads 

of my trading town. 



298 The Lyric Year 

For more to me is the house-top sea, where 

your hooked wings fall and soar, 
Than all of the echoes you trail for me of your 

Spring on a woodland shore. 
Oh, care-free you flew to the crocused North, 

when the breath of the first Spring woke ; 
And not of the ways of the jasmine far, but 

the hours that are, you spoke; 
And free as you flew to the melting North a 

myriad springs ago 
A myriad more and a myriad more will buoy 

you swift from the snow, 
To cry of the stir of the hours that are, as you 

cry through the days to me, 
Through the amethyst of the bright- whirled 

mist, over a roof-top sea, 
Where some window will open afar, afar, and 

some woman look out and say: 
A swallow flies in my city skies and cries of the 

city May! 



LYRIC YEAR CONTRIBUTORS 



Zoe Akins was born in Missouri^, 1886, and has just 
published her first book of poems, Interpretations. 

Katharine Lee Bates was born at Falmouth, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1859. For over twenty years she has 
been professor of English Literature at Wellesley 
College, and is author or editor or translator of a 
host of books. This poem is reprinted here by 
permission of the proprietors of The Old Farm- 
er's Almanack. 

Dorothy Landers Beall was born at Washington, 
D. C.j in 1890, received her early education at 
Kee Mar College, Hagerstown, Maryland, and 
graduated from Mount Vernon Seminary, Wash- 
ington, in 1908. She has since studied in Paris. 
A selection from her work, Poems, was published 
two years ago, and a second volume is in prepa- 
ration. 

William Rose Benet was born at Fort Hamilton, 
New York Harbor, 1886. While at Yale Uni- 
versity he was chairman of the Yale Courant, and 
an editor of the Yale Record; and is now an edi- 
torial assistant on the staff of the Century Maga- 
zine, and a regular contributor to the leading 
periodicals. 

Paul Relland Birge was born at Fargo, North Da- 
kota, in 1883, of English and Norman Huguenot 
ancestry. After being educated in several west- 

299 



300 Lyric Year Contributors 

era States, he entered the government service at 
Washington, D. C, his present home. 

Eloise Briton is the pseudonym of an American 
woman who wishes to conceal her identity. The 
Editor, however, is convinced by reliable author- 
ity that such a person exists. 

Florence Brooks was born at Ann Arbor, Michigan. 
She studied drawing in Chicago and at Munich, 
Germany, and in Columbia University; literature 
in Nebraska University; music in Europe. She 
is the author of three books of poems, and has 
written novels, plays and stories. 

Pauline Florence Brower, nee Johnson, was born 
in New York City, 1881. Her verse appears in 
the leading magazines. 

Charles L. Buchanan was born in New York, 1884. 
After leaving boarding school he worked on the 
Hartford Courant at book reviewing, and then 
covered drama and music for the New York 
Globe. 

Richard Eugene Burton (Hartford, Conn., 1859) 
is a member of the National Institute of Arts 
and Letters, Professor of English, and charter 
member of the Poetry Society of America; and 
the author of eight volumes of verse. 

Witter Bynner (Brooklyn, N. Y., 1881) graduated 
from Harvard, and acted for some time as asso- 
ciate editor of McClure's Magazine, and as liter- 
ary advisor to two publishing houses. He is the 
author of An Ode to Harvard, and An Immigrant 
(poems). 



Lyric Year Contributors 301 

Bryan Oswald Donn-Byrne (New York City, 
1885) is of Irish parentage. He was educated 
here, and at Dublin University (where he held a 
boxing championship), and at Paris and Leipzig. 
He is secretary of the Gaelic Literature Associa- 
tion of America. This poem first appeared in 
Harper's Monthly. 

Bliss Carman was born at Fredericton, New Bruns- 
wick, 1861. His books of verse and prose are 
too widely known to require mention. 

Rhys Carpenter was born at Cotuit, Massachusetts, 
in 1889. Graduating at Columbia University, he 
went as Rhodes Scholar to Balliol College, Ox- 
ford, and, after receiving a degree, was awarded 
the Drisler Fellowship in Classical Philology at 
Columbia University, which affords a year's study 
in Athens, Greece. He is the author of The 
Tragedy of Etarre, a Poem, just published. 

Armond Carroll was born at Asheville, North Caro- 
lina, in 1887, and was educated at the Mount 
Hermon School and at Yale University. Very 
little of his verse has been published. 

Madison Cawein was born in Louisville, Kentucky, 
his present home, in 1865; educated at public 
school; and is the author of many volumes of 
verse, prose, and translations, the choice of which 
may be Kentucky Poems, edited by Mr. Edmund 
Gosse. 

Anne Cleveland Cheney, born in Brooklyn, N. Y., 
now lives in Boston, Massachusetts. A volume 
of her verse, By the Sea, was recently published. 

John Vance Cheney (Groveland, N. Y., 1848), 
poet, critic, librarian, editor, and lawyer, is the 



302 Lyric Year Contributors 

author of many books. His reply to Edwin 
Markham's The Man with the Hoe was awarded 
an important prize some years ago. 

Harold Childs was born at Chicago, Illinois. He 
was educated at Columbia University and at the 
University of Missouri and Ohio State, where he 
is now a student. 

Florence Earle Coates was born in Philadelphia. 
For nine years she was president of The Brown- 
ing Society, Philadelphia, and has published four 
volumes of verse. 

Grace Hazard Conkling was born in New York, 
1878. After Smith College, she devoted herself 
exclusively to the study of music in Germany un- 
der Wolfrum, and in France with Widor. 

Helen Co ale Crew was born in Baltimore, Mary- 
land, in 1866; spent four years at Bryn Mawr 
College, taking a B. A. ; and is the author of a 
volume of verse, Mgean Echoes. 

Thomas Augustine Daly, born at Philadelphia, in 
1871, was educated at public school, Villanova 
College, and at Fordham University, where he re- 
ceived M. A. and Litt. D. He is general man- 
ager of the Catholic Standard and Times, a mem- 
ber of the American Press Humorists, humorous 
lecturer, and the author of Canzoni; Carminia; 
and Madrigali. 

Olive Tilford Dargan is a Kentuckian by nativity, 
the author of two volumes of dramas, and con- 
tributes verse to the magazines. We are in- 
debted for this poem to the Century Magazine. 



Lyric Year Contributors 303 

Fannie Stearns Davis was born at Cleveland, Ohio, 
in 1884, and lives and was educated in Massachu- 
setts, where she graduated in 1904 from Smith 
College. 

Marion Delcomyn, born in London, 1875, was edu- 
cated in Munich and in Paris. She now resides 
in New York, where she engages in settlement 
work, story and play writing, and in poetry. 

Herman Montagu Donner, born in Finland, 1864, 
of English, American, and distinguished Swedish- 
Finlander stock, received his education in the 
capitals of Europe. He then settled in New 
York and became naturalized, publishing English 
Lyrics of a Finnish Harp. He is an instructor of 
German and French literature. 

Julia Caroline Ripley Dorr, although nearly 
eighty-eight years a poet, is still in her prime, 
and, to quote from Stedman's American Anthol- 
ogy, "holds a distinguished and enviable position 
among American women." She is the author of 
many books. 

Susan Hart Dyer was born in Annapolis, Maryland. 
After a course at The Art Students' League, New 
York, and work on the faculty of Rollin's College 
as teacher of music, she is now studying compo- 
sition at the Yale School of Music. 

George Dyre Eldridge (Massachusetts, 1848) was 
educated at Antioch College, is the author of a 
dozen novels, and many books on insurance, and 
practices the profession of an actuary in New 
York City. 

John Erskine was born at New York, his present 
home, in 1879, and attended the Columbia Gram- 



304 Lyric Year Contributors 

mar school. He received A. B., A. M., and Ph.D. 
at Columbia University, where he exercises a 
professorship. He is the author of several books. 

Genevieve Farnell-Bond — nee Browne — was born 
in Cincinnati, where she was educated. She is 
now a member of the Los Angeles Times staff, 
and is known as a composer and an artist, and is 
the author of a book of verse about to appear, 
taking its title from her poem in this volume: 
The Faun. 

Arthur Davison Ficke was born at Davenport, 
Iowa, his present home, in 1883, educated at 
Harvard, toured India, Japan, etc., was admitted 
to the Bar in 1908, contributes to the magazines, 
and is the author of four volumes of poetry, the 
last entitled: The Breaking of Bonds. We are 
indebted to Charles Scribner's Sons for his con- 
tribution. 

Louise Ayres Garnett was born in Indiana. She 
graduated from Dearborn Seminary, of Chicago, 
and has published innumerable songs and poems. 

Margaret Root Garvin was born in New York City ; 
was educated at Lakewood, N. J., and abroad, 
and has contributed poems to the magazines. 

Frances Gregg (Mrs. Louis Wilkinson) was born 
in Hartford, Connecticut. She was privately edu- 
cated, and then for ten years studied in art 
schools. 

Hermann Hagedorn, Jr., born in New York, 1882, 
studied at Harvard and in Germany, has traveled 
extensively in Europe, Africa, and America, has 
written several successful plays, is the author of 



Lyric Year Contributors 305 

A Troop of the Guard, and other Poems; and 
Poems and Ballads, just published. 

Julian Hawthorne, the son of Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne, was born in Boston, 1846, educated at 
Harvard and in Germany. He has spent many 
years in various parts of the world. Journalist, 
biographer, critic, historian, scholar, novelist: he 
is comparatively unknown as a poet, though a 
charter member of the Poetry Society of America. 

Max J. Herzberg, born in New York City, 1886, is 
a graduate of Columbia University, where he did 
considerable literary work. He publishes verse 
in the magazines, and is at present instructor of 
English in the Central High School of Newark, 
New Jersey. 

C. Hilton-Turvey was born at Jefferson, Missouri, 
and is married to T. Hilton-Turvey, the song 
writer. Mrs. Hilton-Turvey is the author of a 
number of published songs, stories and poems. 

Margaret Belle Houston was educated at St. 
Mary's College, Dallas, and is the author of 
Prairie Flowers (verse), besides a poetical drama 
and many short stories. 

Gottfried Emanuel Hult (Chicago, 1869) is pro- 
fessor of literature and of Greek at the University 
of North Dakota. He is the author of Reveries 
and other Poems; he lectures on esthetic and ethi- 
cal subjects, and contributes verse to the maga- 
zines. 

Percy Adams Hutchison was born at Newton, Mas- 
sachusetts, in 1875. He attended Harvard Col- 
lege; contributes to periodicals; and has just 
edited British Poems, published by Charles 
Scribner's Sons. 



306 Lyric Year Contributors 

Orrick Johns was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 
1887- He was educated in the public schools 
there, and later studied at the College of Arts 
and Sciences, University of Missouri, and in the 
School of Architecture at Washington University, 
St. Louis. He is dramatic critic and book re- 
viewer for the St. Louis Mirror. 

Thomas S. Jones, Jr., was born at Boonville, N. Y., 
in 1882, and graduated from Cornell University. 
He is the author of twelve volumes of verse, sev- 
eral in collaboration with Clinton Scollard, also 
herein represented. 

Harry Kemp (Ohio, 1883), after brief schooling, and 
work in a factory, shipped on a bark for Au- 
stralia. Then other wanderings, study at the 
Kansas State University and the Roycroft Shop, 
more roving, labor and verse-writing. 

Joyce Kilmer (New Brunswick, N. J.) attended Rut- 
gers College, and Columbia University. He has 
published a book of verse, Summer of Love, and 
is bringing out a volume of child and fairy poems, 
in co-authorship with Aline Murray, his wife. 
He is noted as a critic of poetry. 

Florence Kiper, born at Atchison, Kansas, in 1886, 
lives in Chicago, where she attended school and 
the University of Chicago. She contributes poems 
to the magazines. 

Herman E. Kittredge was born at Walden, Ver- 
mont, in 1871. He studied chemistry at Cooper 
Institute, New York, and medicine at George 
Washington University, D. C. Dr. Kittredge ex- 
pounds many original views on prosody; and is 
best known for his recent work — Ingersoll: A 
Biographical Appreciation. 



Lyric Year Contributors 307 

Louis V. Ledoux was born in New York in 1880, 
and was educated at Columbia, graduating in 
1902. He studied literature chiefly under the 
guidance of George Edward Woodberry, and is 
the author of three books — Songs from the Silent 
Land, The Soul's Progress and Other Poems, and 
Yzdra. 

Agnes Lee was born in Chicago. She was educated 
in Switzerland; has translated Gautier's poetry 
and Gregh's into English; contributes verse to 
the magazines, and has published two books, 
Round Rabbit, and The Border of the Lake. 

Richard Le Gallienne, born in Liverpool, Eng- 
land, 1866, was educated at Liverpool College. 
He came to America about 1897, and is now a 
charter member of the Poetry Society of America, 
and the author of many well-known books of 
poetry and prose. 

Ludwig Lewisohn, born in Berlin, 1882, was brought 
as a child to America, and is now assistant pro- 
fessor of German at the Ohio State University. 
He is the author of a number of volumes, and 
contributes regularly to the magazines: poems, 
stories and criticisms. 

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay is tramping the Western 
States on a prolonged evangelistic tour "preach- 
ing the Gospel of Beauty in rural districts and 
trading (his) rhymes for bread." He hails from 
Springfield, Illinois. His poem we reprint by 
permission of the American Magazine. 

G. Constant Lounsbery (New York City) studied 
for medicine at Bryn Mawr College, graduated 
at Johns Hopkins, has published Love's Testament 



308 Lyric Year Contributors 

(sonnets), Iseult and other Poems, and Poems of 
Revolt and Satan Unbound, and now enjoys a 
distinguished position in Paris, her present home, 
as a playwright. 

Arvia MacKaye, daughter of Percy MacKaye, has 
passed most of her ten years at Cornish, New 
Hampshire, where, with children of the colony, 
she has acted in Thackeray's The Rose and the 
Ring, and in Midsummer Night's Dream. She 
is the author of many lyrics, of which The Hermit 
Thrush has been widely quoted, and was set to 
music and published; and a fairy play, The Daf- 
fodils. 

Percy MacKaye (New York, 1875), the well- 
known dramatist, poet, lecturer, and scholar, dis- 
tinguished himself at Harvard and at the Uni- 
versity of Leipzig. He is the author of numerous 
plays, poems and essays. 

Charles Henry Mackintosh was born in Hallaton, 
England, in 1885, of Scottish descent. He lives 
in Duluth, Minnesota, contributing as a profession 
to a number of technical and literary periodicals. 

Catherine Markham's maiden name was Anna Cath- 
erine Murphy; she is the wife of Edwin Mark- 
ham. Their home on Staten Island is dear to 
many a young poet. 

Edwin Markham (Oregon City, 1852) worked on a 
California ranch, wrote verse, schooled, attended 
colleges, superintended educational institutions; 
and, in 1899, after publishing The Man with a 
Hoe, found himself world-famous. He is about 
to publish Virgilia, and Other Poems, 



Lyric Year Contributors 309 

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in 1892. At 
the age of fourteen she revealed, to quote an emi- 
nent critic, "phenomenal promise" as a writer of 
verse; and has carried off no little honor during 
her brief career. 

Angela Morgan's poetry first came to public notice 
when the Rev. Dr. G. Campbell Morgan of Lon- 
don preached a noted sermon here, from her poem, 
God's Man. Her second success was Pickets of 
Hell, extensively copied and recited. Miss Mor- 
gan is well known as a journalist and writer of 
fiction. 

Bertha Newberry was born at Coldwater, Michi- 
gan, and is now residing at Carmel-by-the-Sea, 
California. She has written verse since childhood. 
This year her poetical drama of old Egypt, The 
Toad, was produced in two western cities. 

Edward J. O'Brien is engaged in literary work and 
edited the volumes of essays by Francis Thomp- 
son and John Davidson recently published. 

Theodore Eugene Oertel was born at Westerley, 
Rhode Island, in 1864. In 1892 he graduated 
from the Medical Department of George Wash- 
ington University, D. C. 

James Oppenheim (St. Paul, Minnesota, 1882) lives 
in New York, and studied literature at Columbia 
University. He is the author of Monday Morn- 
ing and other Poems, and a number of novels. 
Pittsburgh appeared in The International Maga- 
zine. 

Shaemas O Sheel, born in New York City in 1886, 
was educated at public school and Columbia Uni- 



310 Lyric Year Contributors 

versity. He contributes poems and critical essays 
to the leading periodicals, and his collected poems, 
The Blossomy Bough, was widely noticed. 

Josephine Preston Peabody (Mrs. Lionel S. 
Marks) is a native of New York, educated and 
residing in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts. 
She is the author of a number of well-known vol- 
umes of verse, the latest being The Singing Man. 
Her drama, The Piper, obtained the Stratford-on- 
Avon prize, 1910. 

Muriel Rice published her first poem when nine 
years old in the St. Nicholas Magazine. Her 
first book of verse, privately printed, and trans- 
lated by Dr. Theodore Tessing into German, re- 
ceived no little comment. She is the author of 
another volume, Poems. 

Mary Eleanor Roberts was born in Philadelphia in 
1867. She is on the managing board of the 
Browning Society, and is the author of Cloth of 
Frieze. 

Francis Rolt-Wheeler, born of Irish parents in 
1876, was educated in Europe and Africa, spend- 
ing his youth in adventure and before the mast. 
Journalist, editor, lecturer, and chaplain of St. 
Luke's Hospital, New York, he is vice-president 
of the Gaelic Literature League, and the author 
of many juvenile and scientific works, and a 
poetic drama, Nimrod, just published. 

Jessie E. Sampter was born at New York, N. Y., 
her home, in 1883, of Jewish parents. She has 
traveled widely, and is the author of The Seekers. 

Robert Haven Schauffler, born under the Ameri- 
can flag in Austria, 1879, arrived as an infant in 



Lyric Year Contributors 311 

Cleveland, Ohio. He knows the States down 
every grade of the social scale, and his songs are 
the fruit of familiar experience. Poet, famed 
'cellist, athlete, globe-trotter, scholar, vagabond, 
editor, sculptor, he has written many important 
books, including two volumes of verse, the latter, 
Scum o' the Earth, and other Poems, just pub- 
lished. 

Herman George Scheffauer, of California, tempo- 
rarily residing in England, is the author of two 
volumes of verse, The Masque of Elements, and 
Drake in California. 

Edwin Davies Schoonmaker, born at Scranton, 
Pennsylvania, was educated in the public schools 
of Ohio and Kentucky, and at Kentucky Wesley an 
College, Kentucky University, and at the Uni- 
versity of Chicago, and for some time filled the 
chair of Latin and Greek in Eureka College, Eu- 
reka, Illinois. He contributes to the magazines, 
and is the author of The Saxons and The Ameri- 
cans. 

Clinton Scollard, born at Clinton, N. Y., his home, 
in 1860, has published about thirty volumes of 
verse. He is professor of English Literature at 
Hamilton College, where he was educated, to- 
gether with Harvard University, and Cambridge, 
England. 

Wendell Phillips Stafford was born at Barre, 
Vermont, in 1861. He received LL.B. cum laude 
in 1883 from the Boston University; and is now 
an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the 
District of Columbia. Beside contributing poems 
to the magazines, he is the author of two volumes 
of verse. 



312 Lyric Year Contributors 

Marion Cummings Stanley> nee Cummings, was 
born at San Francisco, California. She gradu- 
ated from the University of California, and is now 
assistant professor of philosophy at the University 
of Arizona, and a regular contributor to the maga- 
zines. 

George Sterling (Sag Harbor, N. Y., 1869) was 
educated under Father Tabb at St. Charles Col- 
lege, is the author of The Testimony of the Sunj 
and other Poems, A Wine of Wizardry and other 
Poems, The House of Orchids and other Poems. 

Alan Sullivan, born at Montreal, in 1868, studied 
at the Lorette School, Scotland, and at Toronto 
University. He is a contributor to the best maga- 
zines, prose and verse; and two of his plays were 
produced this year by the Arts and Letters Club 
of Toronto, where he is civil and mechanical en- 
gineer for a large corporation. 

Mildred McNeal Sweeney was born at Burnett, 
Wisconsin, in 1871, and educated at Lawrence 
University, Wisconsin. She has published 
(poems) When Yesterday Was Young, and Men 
of No Land. 

Sara Teasdale was born at St. Louis, Mo., in 1884, 
where she was educated and now makes her home. 
She is a lover of Italy, and the author of Sonnets 
to Duse; also, Helen of Troy and other Poems. 

Edith Matilda Thomas was born at Chatham, Ohio, 
in 1854, and resides in New York. She is the 
author of a dozen volumes of verse and prose, and 
a noted contributor to the leading magazines. 
The Guest at the Gate (verse) appeared in 1909. 



Lyric Year Contributors 313 

Ridgely Torrence, born at Xenia, Ohio, in 1875, 
is the author of The House of a Hundred Lights; 
El Dorado, a tragedy; Abelard and Heloise 
(poetic drama) ; Three Plays for Women. 

Charles Hanson Towne was born at Louisville, 
Kentucky, in 1877. He now edits The Designer, 
and was formerly editor of The Smart Set. He 
is the author of several books of verse, such as 
The Quiet Singer, Manhattan, and Youth and 
other Poems. Amy Woodforde-Finden has set 
many of his lyrics to music. 

Anna Spencer Twitchell was born at Louisville, 
Kentucky, in 1889, and was educated in the pub- 
lic and high schools of Hamilton, Ohio. This 
poem appeared in The Delineator. 

Louis Untermeyer was born in New York City, 
1885, and was educated in the local schools. He 
is the author of a volume of parodies, The 
Younger Quire; and a lyric sequence, First Love. 
His sonnet, Mockery, was awarded the Interna- 
tional Magazine poetry prize, 1911. 

Allan Updegraff was born near Grinnell, Iowa, 
1883 ; was educated at public school in Springfield, 
Mo., and at Yale University. He contributes 
poetry and stories to the leading magazines. 

Leonard Van Noppen was born in Holland, 1868; 
came to North Carolina; has distinguished him- 
self as a Dutch scholar in several institutions and 
by his metrical translation of Vondel's Lucifer. 
For years he has been completing a vast epic, 
entitled Armageddon, which will be published 
this winter in London. 



314 Lyric Year Contributors 

George Sylvester Viereck was born in Munich, of 
German and American parents, twenty-seven years 
ago, coming here as a child. For several years he 
has enjoyed international fame as poet and writer, 
beside a lively editorial career. 

Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff, born in Manhat- 
tan, N. Y., twenty-three years ago, is already 
the author of five volumes of verse and drama, 
and is associate editor of the International Maga- 
zine. 

Henry Christeen Warnack, born at Caryville, 
Tennessee, 1877, graduated from the Tennessee 
Military Institute, is the author of Life's New 
Psalm, Man the Master, and a large mass of un- 
collected verse; and resides in Los Angeles, Cali- 
fornia, where he is engaged as an editorial writer 
on the Los Angeles Times. 

John Hall Wheelock was born in Long Island in 
1886. He spent his boyhood in New York City. 
After graduating from Harvard in 1908, he stud- 
ied at the Universities of Berlin and Gottingen, 
but returned in 1910 to New York, where, he is 
engaged in business. His first book of poems was 
The Human Fantasy; The Beloved Adventure 
has just been issued. 

Margaret Widdemer was born at Doyleston, Penn- 
sylvania, and was educated exclusively by her 
father. She won several first prizes for poetry 
when still quite a child. Her present poem was 
awarded second prize last year by the Philadel- 
phia Browning Society, and is published by per- 
mission of Scribner's Magazine. 



Lyric Year Contributors 315 

Marguerite O. B. Wilkinson was born in Halifax, 
Nova Scotia. She studied at the Northwestern 
and at the Transylvania Universities, has roamed 
throughout America, coming into intimate contact 
with all classes and types ; and lives in Santa Bar- 
bara, California. She is well represented in her 
book of verse, In Vivid Gardens. 

William Hervey Woods was born in Green County, 
Kentucky, November 17, 1852. He was educated 
at Hampden-Sidney College and the Union Theo- 
logical Seminary, Virginia. He was ordained in 
1878 and became pastor of the Franklin Square 
Presbyterian Church, Baltimore. He is a fre- 
quent contributor to the leading magazines. 

George Edward Woodberry was born in 1855, at 
his present home, Beverly, Massachusetts. He is 
the author or editor of three-score volumes, deal- 
ing principally with verse. We are indebted to 
Scribner's Magazine for this poem. 

Rea Woodman was born at Jacksonville, Illinois; 
taken to Kansas in a prairie schooner; brought up 
with forests, cowboys, Indians, horses, dogs and 
guns; attended several universities; has published 
three books of verse and nearly a score of plays 
for schools and colleges; and has taught, and done 
editorial work. 

Willard Huntington Wright was born in Char- 
lottesville, Va. ; educated in New York and at 
Harvard University; studied painting; and was 
art editor of the West Coast Magazine. He is 
now part editor of the Los Angeles Times and 
literary critic of Town Topics. 



316 Lyric Year Contributors 

Edith Wyatt resides in Chicago. She was educated 
at Bryn Mawr College, and has contributed many 
poems, short stories and articles to the magazines. 
She is the author of several books of prose. This 
poem is reprinted by permission of the Metro- 
politan Magazine. 



Aea a 19^ 



